As “labor insurance scalpers” are very active at hospitals and clinics, seizing opportunities to offer a service to inpatients and their family members for claiming the benefits of labor insurance and farmer’s health insurance and then charging a large amount of commission, this year the BLI focus on working with major hospitals nationwide by offering courses for doctors, nurses, social workers and volunteers about the basic of various benefits of labor insurance and improper behaviors of labor insurance scalpers. It is hoped that after being well informed by doctors and frontline workers, the insured persons will have a better understanding of their rights or be refered to the local offices of the BLI for advice on the application for relevant benefits, thus reaching the common goal of elimination labor insurance scalping.
Injury or sickness benefit, disability benefit, and old-age benefit of the labor insurance provide subsidies for the insured person in times of sickness or basic support at his/her old age. The insured person will suffer a great loss if he/she asks a scalper to apply for such benefits on his/her behalf and end up being ripped off or charged a huge amount of commission by the scalper. Therefore, the BLI not only frequently promotes the prevention of labor insurance scalping by means of various kinds of media and seminars, but also provides patients with consulting service by our personnel stationed at some hospitals. As a result, the BLI has made a considerable achievement in preventing labor insurance scalping. However, there were still some hospitalized insured persons and their family members who were not familiar with the laws and regulations concerning labor insurance or did not know how to apply for related benefits. They signed an agency contract with labor insurance scalper without due considerations. They did not petition the BLI for help until they had paid a large amount of commission or their benefits had been ripped off.
According to Mr. Wuu-Hu Luo, Director General of the BLI, in order to enhance the prevention of “labor insurance scalping”, since March 2014, the BLI has been taking the initiative to send staff to hospitals to offer course for the doctors, nurses, social workers and volunteers there about this subject, hoping that through frequent contact with insured persons and their family members, the insured persons may be well informed of the available benefits in the event of hospitalization, disability and death, or their claim cases will be transferred to the local offices of BLI for assistance with the application for relevant benefits, so as to reduce the risk of being ripped off by labor insurance scalpers. This project will continue, and up to October 2014, 88 seminars have been conducted.
In addition, for this labor insurance scalping prevention project, the BLI has printed 700,000 leaflets entitled “What kind of money are you eligible to receive from the labor insurance program? Have you applied for it yet?—About medical treatment.” The assigned staff members of BLI local offices distribute these leaflets to every hospital; they are either provided by counter personnel to the insured persons and their family members in the admission process or placed at open spaces such as nurse stations, rest areas for family members or wards, so that the insured persons and family members may read and realize what benefits are offered by the labor insurance in the event of hospitalization, disability or death.
Director General Luo stressed that in order to prevent labor insurance scalping, the BLI will continue to not only promote it more forcefully through all kinds of channels and schemes, but also find out scalpers’ promotional tactics and establish some control mechanism by collecting the flyers distributed by them. Any suspicious claim cases will be investigated by the BLI’s staff. If any violation or fraud is discovered, the BLI will actively submit the case to the prosecutors for investigation, so as to protect the insured person’s interests.
The BLI has established 24 local offices nationwide. If the insured person is not familiar with the application procedures for any kind of labor insurance benefits, he/she can look for inquiry service by visiting information desk at any local office or by phone. For service phone numbers of all local offices, please visit the BLI’s website at: http://www.bli.gov.tw/en/sub.aspx?a=4vl%2f%2blPkN84%3d or call (02)2396-1266.