30-Mar-17 The Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council has partnered with five Indonesian health tourism companies in the travel, insurance, and financial services industries with the aim of adopting a strategic approach to providing quality services to the more than 500,000 visitors arriving from Indonesia to seek medical treatment annually. [image: MIMS]

29-Mar-17 Indian Parliament this week passed the Mental Healthcare Bill marking a paradigm shift in how people with mental disorders are treated in India. The bill will decriminalise suicide by mentally ill people and provide the right to better healthcare for people suffering from mental illness. Moreover, it will allow for mental health interventions through insurance. [image: ET Healthcare]

05-Mar-17 Indonesia’s healthcare insurance scheme is struggling to gain traction. Poor services at public hospitals and the difficulty of accessing care across the vast archipelago are factors, but abuse of the scheme by hospitals and fraud by users are also to blame. The number of people benefiting from the scheme may be less than official figures claim. [image: FT Confidentail Research]

08-Feb-17 Vietnam plans to issue electronic health security cards to its citizens verifying their right to medical services. The push to digitize the system is aimed at seamless healthcare delivery and insurance across the country. Electronic healthcare registries in all 63 cities and provinces will be synced together so that insurance plans will have to accept all cardholders. [image: VN Express / Dang Phuong Lan]

01-Mar-17 Japan's national health insurance logged a deficit of JPY284 bn yen (USD2.5 bn) in 2015 as an injection of public funds failed to compensate for rising costs stemming from an aging subscriber pool and pricey new treatments. The main culprit was a rise in benefit payments, which grew 2.1%. High-priced hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni also played a role. [image: Nikkei Asian Reveiw]