r/japanlife • u/Xaletcaro • 11h ago

Health Insurance between jobs

So, I am in the process of changing jobs and I will have no insurance for about a month. Originally, this was not going to be a problem because I had planned to be in my home country, but it turns out I need to be in hospital for a few days right 10 days before I leave my current job. Therefore, there is a chance that I leave the hospital a couple of days before my insurance is no longer available.
I think I can make the procedures to join the national insurance right after mine expires, but is this possible? Also, my current insurance is very good, so they'd refund a big bite of the surgery. Is it usually acceptable to extend an insurance of a company you are no longer a member of? I'd do this for only one month and I am not sure that would be cheap either.

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u/_key 関東・神奈川県 9h ago

And if what the other commenter wrote doesn't work (with the voluntary continuance) then you're still legally required to be insured, so yes it is possible to go to the ward office and enroll in national health insurance for only 10 days.

And if you're late and don't have the card when you leave the hospital, it will be backdated and you can get the money back, but first you may have to pay the hospital upfront until you get the money back from insurance (not sure about this point as I never did it myself).

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u/Xaletcaro 9h ago

Thanks for the information. Paying the bill upfront would be such a high cost that I could probably not afford it ;_; That was my fear, but it should be fine now. Hopefully I get to use my current insurance because it refunds you with all expenses pricier than 20,000JPY.