Regulations Governing the National Health Insurance Medical Care Article 10

The contracted hospital shall check the NHI Card of a beneficiary during the beneficiary’s hospital admission procedures and return the NHI Card to the beneficiary after checking it.During an inpatient's hospitalization, if the patient has a condition requiring treatment from a different medical specialty that the attending physician determines requires immediate medical care, and the hospital does not have an appropriate specialty department to provide such services, the patient may request leave to seek outpatient care in accordance with the provisions of Article 13. The same shall apply to the case where a physician confirms that a dialysis patient shall immediately undergo dialysis treatment during the patient’s hospitalization in a hospital that is unable to provide dialysis service.A contracted hospital or an obstetrics and gynecology clinic may not provide its medical service for a beneficiary who is hospitalized in such hospital or clinic by way of the outpatient care of the same hospital or clinic. Notwithstanding, if the hospital or the obstetrics and gynecology clinic is unable to provide a complete laboratory testing (examination) due to limited staff, facilities, or expertise, it may entrust another contracted medical care institution to provide the laboratory testing (examination) by way of referral medical examination or outsourcing medical examination.