Kutchan Kosei Hospital in Hokkaido has raised medical fees for foreign self-pay patients to three times the previous rate.
For Japanese patients with insurance, this effectively means foreigners are now charged around ten times more.
The hospital cited the heavy burden of translation, longer consultation times, and administrative costs caused by the large number of foreign patients in the Niseko area. They expect the change to improve their finances by over 100 million yen per year.
It is a modest adjustment that simply makes foreign visitors bear the actual cost they impose on the system, rather than having Japanese patients and taxpayers quietly cover the difference.
Other hospitals across the country facing similar pressures would do well to consider the same approach.