BABY!

Hello, everyone? How are you?

This is Rumi from the Shibuya Business Garden.

I am SO excited! I can't contain my excitement today even at work.

Can you guess why? It's because my sister is giving a birth tomorrow!!!!

The doctor says it probably is a baby girl. But no guarantee so far.

I don't really care if it is a boy or girl. Just hope it's a healthｙ baby.

Well, as you know, Japan enjoy universal national health insurance system.

There are complicated exceptional rules, such as Benefits for High-cost Medical Care, but if I skip explaining those rules, basically national health insurance means you are only responsible to cover 30% of actual medical cost.

But national health insurance wouldn't be applied in case of health check up, preventive medicine such as vaccination, and pregnancy.

You might have been surprised to find out pregnancy is ruled out from the national insurance coverage.

Don't worry because there are other public help systems out there!

Usually when a woman visits a doctor for pregnancy check for the first time, even the doctor confirms pregnancy, the medical cost wouldn't be covered by insurance. Because pregnancy is not medical problem. It happens to normal healthy women as they think. But right after the pregnancy confirmation, you can get check-up tickets at your city hall. My city currently provides 14 tickets to a pregnant woman. It means your 2nd to final maternity check ups would be covered by the public system.

Delivery is also ruled out from the national insurance coverage, as you can guess, but there is also another public system. You can get refund of delivery cost from the insurance up to 420,000yen per one baby.

That means if you have twin, your delivery cost will be refunded up to 840,000yen!!!

It's funny because national health insurance wouldn't cover the delivery cost, but refund the delivery cost later on, kind complicated.

To conclude above scattered explanations, there are many public help for maternity women in Japan.

Personally I think that's the way things should be as no one would have baby if we have to cover all those cost by ourselves. If you have a chance to have a baby in Japan, remember to utilize public help system.

Hope you have a great week.

Rumi

Shibuya Business Garden
TEL 03-6892-1111
FAX 03-6892-1151
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