TOKYO -- Japan stopped issuing dedicated health insurance cards on Dec. 2 as the function is being incorporated into the government-backed "My Number" ID card system. Uptake of the new cards at medical institutions stood at a low of 15.67% as of October, but a prefectural breakdown shows disparities in usage rates varying as high as 16 percentage points from one prefecture to another.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has been surveying and releasing monthly usage rates of My Number health insurance cards at pharmacies and hospitals since January. The highest uptake in October was in Toyama Prefecture, at 23.59%. This was followed by the prefectures of Shimane, Fukui, Ishikawa and Niigata, indicating higher usage rates within Japan's central Hokuriku region and other areas along the Sea of Japan coast.

In contrast, usage was low in the country's southernmost Okinawa Prefecture at just 7.43%. The next lowest were Wakayama, Ehime, Miyagi and Aichi prefectures, showing that lower usage trends were geographically spotty as these spanned from southwest to northeast Japan.

A ministry official was not aware of any reasons for the relatively high uptake among the Hokuriku region prefectures.

Between Nov. 15 and 18, survey company Neo Marketing Inc. conducted an online poll of 1,000 My Number card holders aged 20 and over. The results showed that some experienced difficulties using the My Number health insurance cards due to system failures and other problems. Altogether, 61% of cardholders had used the new cards at receptions of hospitals and other facilities, and of these, 72% hadn't come across issues.

Of the 373 respondents who had used My Number cards at health facilities, the most common response to a question asking about their experience, at 8.8% was that "medical institutions did not accept them." Other frequent problems included "the recognition system did not function, resulting in authentication failure," at 7.2%; users "forgetting the PIN code" or "the reception system was congested and it took a long time" each at 6.7%; and "a network error occurred and it could not be confirmed" at 5.6%.

Asked about their level of concern regarding security, including for the My Number card system, a total of 63.7% responded either being "very worried" or "somewhat worried." This unease was higher in line with respondents' age, with 71% of those in their 60s and above offering either of the two responses versus 54.5% of those in their 20s.

(Japanese original by Naoko Furuyashiki, Business News Department)