Abstract

New health technologies are as the state-of-the-art in the modern medicine and health care that can be applied to various systemic diseases. Regardless of its importance, in many cases the patients are not being able to benefit from new health technologies for their systemic diseases. Hence, they are not covered under health insurance generally, and even covered, it is common that long time is taken to be covered. This study looks at different perspective to the number of previous studies on regenerative medicine as an exemplary case and health insurance coverage, which focused on the clinical results that was beneficial to the patients, researchers and society. In this study, the insured benefits and various non-insured benefits under the health insurance system were examined. Even some regenerative medical services are recognized as safety and efficacy to some degree, the problem of being treated as non-insured medical services due to the new health care technology as itself was discussed through the concept of shadow price. In addition, the study discussed that regenerative medicine proven effectiveness for disease treatments should be included in the insurance benefits, in principle. For this, Japanese cases were referred. The case of Japan may not be fully applicable to all other countries or some specific countries. However, it may be a reference for countries with low protection even though taking public medical insurance systems.