Hello, this is my first post but thanks for all the information I always find here and sorry for my bad English.
Well, I’ve been living in japan for 5 years now, and since year 1 I made a 通証明 or “legal alias” at my local municipality building, I am Latino and having two names and two last names, it is very long and mendokusai to use in japan, so I took my wife’s Japanese last name and made up a Japanese name in kanji and registered at the municipality, I’ve been using that name for everything in japan, My job, house bills, work related menkyos and other clinics, dentists, pension fund and health insurance without any problem until now.
But it happened today I went to a different clinic and gave my hoken to the desk lady, she looked at it and then looked at me and said I don’t look Japanese, who’s hoken is that? Implying I was using someone’s else’s hoken to get a discount, I explained about the legal alias and also showed my number card which has my real name and also the alias but she refused to take it, asked me for my passport or zaryu Kado, but the alias is not wrote on those two, so after talking for a while she got really mad and I ended up accepting to pay the full cost since I was already there and they have a Spanish speaking doctor I really needed.
I felt really bad after that 😔 traveled 4 hours just to see that doctor, at least now I know what I have and got medicines.
So, does anyone know if I can do anything about it? Was it legal? Can I report somewhere? Thank you in advance!
6 comments
Doesn’t sound like she did anything wrong. They are not allowed to see your mynumber card as ID. If you don’t have anything else corroborating your legal alias then they can’t be sure it’s yours.
You need to get a 住民票 or some other official document from your ward/city office that shows BOTH your legal name and your legal alias. See pages 3 to 5 of this document that talks about this very problem.
https://www.jmedj.co.jp/files/premium_blog/fmtt/fmtt_sample.pdf
>在留外国人の場合は所持を義務づけられている在留カードでの確認が可
能です。ただし、公的保険証の名前は住民基本台帳に記載された通称名で
も作成でき、 こういうケースでは本人であっても在留カードの本名とは異
なることになります。ではどのようにしたら確認できるのか。それは本名と
通称名の両方が記載されているはずの住民票を見る以外ないでしょう。
So you can go back with a 住民票 or whatever and get your refund.
Just because you don’t look Japanese she shouldn’t have assumed your weren’t Japanese .. maybe one of your parents is … though I’m not sure why you just didn’t keep your original first name ??
Please get in touch with HR in your company; they will do it for you. I hope you are still keeping the receipt and other stuff.
Yeah man, I get your frustration, but that situation does sound mad suspicious. I’d probably have done the same thing as her (minus the getting mad). Handing a 100% Japanese named health insurance and your zairyu card has a different name would make anyone doubt.
Just get more documents and go back.
The good news is that you can get reimbursed next time you go to the clinic with your documents (I left my hoken card at home once and they gave me the refund on my next visit).
Normally you would go to the customer service desk of the hospital and get the matter resolved right there, but since you mention a “clinic” I doubt they have one.
The clinic can also call to confirm the validity of your insurance card.
Go directly to your local 保健所 and file a complaint, it’s unreal that you have to pay full price because you don’t look whatever she thinks you should look like or you don’t have the name she thinks you should have and apparently she didn’t even bother to call to verify the card itself.