{"id":444782,"date":"2026-01-29T08:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444782\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T08:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:49:10","slug":"are-foreign-nationals-actually-dodging-their-medical-bills-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444782\/","title":{"rendered":"Are foreign nationals actually dodging their medical bills in Japan?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The issue of foreign patients at hospitals and clinics not paying medical bills was a major topic in a package of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2026\/01\/23\/japan\/foreign-nationals-policies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">policies on foreign residents and tourists<\/a> the government compiled, sparking questions about how big of a problem this might be.<\/p>\n<p>In the policy package released Friday, if foreign nationals, including mid- and long-term residents, have \u00a510,000 ($63) or more \u2014 down from the current threshold of \u00a5200,000 \u2014 in unpaid medical bills, immigration authorities plan to, in principle, ban foreign nationals with unpaid bills from reentering the country.<\/p>\n<p>But are foreign residents and visitors who seek medical attention getting treatment and then skirting the bill, or are other reasons at play?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The issue of foreign patients at hospitals and clinics not paying medical bills was a major topic in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,4046,1361,137,500,19900,6771],"class_list":{"0":"post-444782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-doctors","11":"tag-expats","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-hospitals","15":"tag-tourism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}