Hi there, my name is Evie and I’ve been studying abroad in Tokyo, Japan since September! Everything was fine and dandy until that fateful day; the day I was admitted to the hospital. It turns out I had contracted an ear infection that just would not go away, and I had to be hospitalized for three weeks for my surgery and recovery. I’m all good now, though! But I can now say I had a unique study abroad experience, and I can leave Japan with more intimate knowledge about Japanese public healthcare than many of my peers.

Like many other countries, Japan has a National Health Insurance policy. Companies may also extend private insurance policies to their employees, but that doesn’t apply to your average foreign exchange student. Because I am residing in the country for more than six months, I am required to enroll. My monthly payments are based on my income from the previous year in Japan, which was nothing, so my payments have been very low. When I visit a regular health clinic and during the time I was hospitalized, my co-payment is 30% of the bill. That may sound like a lot in the scope of American healthcare, but healthcare in Japan is ridiculously cheap! I pay $10 or less for the vast majority of my visits to outpatient clinics. My prescriptions have never been more than $10 either. And then there came the hospital bill. For a three week stay in a public ward of a hospital, my 30% co-payment was less than $3,000, which is insanely cheap compared to hospitalizations in America on public insurance! Although that was a big unexpected cost for me and I took a big hit into my budget for it, have no fear as the Japanese government saves me again. One of the benefits of Japanese National Health Insurance is monthly maximum payments depending on your income bracket. Since I have no income, I am only required to pay about $500 out of pocket for my entire hospitalization, not including meals. Finally, Mizzou has their students who study abroad enroll in special insurance that covers for specific events such as these. Although I have not gotten to this part of the process in my personal insurance journey, I will get some amount of that already heavily reduced bill reimbursed to me hopefully. Personally, I think that Japanese National Health Insurance is unbelievably cheap, which it is. With an aging population, Japan’s medical costs have started to increase, requiring the government to supplement the system more and more in recent years. This is a similar experience to the Social Security system in America; there aren’t enough people in younger generations to feed into the system that benefits the older generations. That said, things will likely change in Japan’s healthcare system to accommodate.

Economics aside, my experience in the hospital was pleasant but over-extended. The craziest thing to me was the fact that there was no wifi! The days when I had already used all of my data for the month were some of the most boring days of my life. Another interesting concept in Japan is that instead of trying to discharge their patients as soon as possible like in America, hospitals in Japan are very cautious to release their patients, and it is considered a very serious move to discharge someone from the hospital. However, the best part of the hospital was the food. Although it did get old after about two weeks, my hospitalization has been my best chance to try a wide variety of different authentic Japanese dishes, and they were really good! Oddly enough, I am seriously starting to miss the hospital food now… With that, my advice is if you plan on getting hospitalized while in Japan, the sooner the better!

About the blogger

Evelyn S. is studying abroad on the Sophia University program in Tokyo, Japan.