I went to Tokyo with my friend in 2019. We had a bad accident and they ended up going to the hospital during our stay and getting surgery. The bill accumulated to 10,000 USD (he didn’t have insurance at the time).
He only managed to pay off 2K of it and hasn’t really made payments since due to losing his job during the pandemic.
I read an article saying foreigners with unpaid hospital bills would not be allowed to return. Is that true?
I haven’t seen any updates on that claim since. Anyone know?
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/x48gdi/my_friend_didnt_pay_off_all_his_hospital_bill/
1 comment
It seems like Ministry of Health is encouraging hospitals to report unpaid bills by foreigner in order to share the information with Immigration service agency, so that news must be true. ([Link on their official article in Japanese.](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000202921_00012.html)) And I don’t see why they would stop that. Not that I think asking on reddit would do much even if they did indeed stop doing that though.. I mean, IANAL but apparently medical bills before 2020 will expire within 3 years ([there are some asterisks](https://www.seinen-kouken.net/tateno-law/e_1275) and I don’t know how that applies to foreigners, but lets assume the best case scenario), yet there’s no reason why immigration gives up on tracking record of the foreigner especially when they didn’t pay for it. It was kinda unfortunate for your friend, but maybe it was a good lesson to have insurance ready for the next trip.