Japan has now completed its switch to a system that folds health insurance functions into the My Number identification card, even though the public still isn’t convinced the infrastructure is ready.
Traditional insurance cards technically expired, but the government built in a buffer: people can keep using them at clinics and hospitals until the end of March to prevent chaos at reception desks.
Patients keep paying the usual 10-30% of treatment costs.
Anyone without a My Number card isn’t locked out of care. They just need to show a certificate confirming health insurance enrollment, which gives them access to insured treatment without the digital component.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare keeps repeating that the new setup should make life easier for providers because clinics can quickly check a patient’s records and prescription history.
It’s the kind of efficiency upgrade Japan’s health system has chased for years.
But the public mood hasn’t moved with the policy. Since My Number debuted in 2016, repeated data leaks, registration mix-ups and mismatched records have left people wary.
Adoption sits below 40%, a stubborn figure for a country that usually takes up digital systems once trust builds. Roughly 78 mn employees’ insurance cards expired on Monday.
Issuance stopped in December last year, then ran through a one-year grace period.
The National Health Insurance program followed a similar path: about 70% of those cards expired at the end of July, with the rest closing out this week.
As of late October, 87.3mn people had registered their My Number card for health insurance use, covering about 88% of all My Number holders. Yet actual usage tells a different story. Only 37.1% have used the card for medical services.
Whether the forced retirement of old cards nudges people to adopt the new approach is still anyone’s guess, and officials aren’t pretending the transition will be smooth. The system is live, but sentiment hasn’t caught up.
