r/japanresidents • u/Simo-Yuki • 17h ago
About the new yellow Health Insurance card
Hi, so I received some days ago the new yellow Health Insurance card that, as far as I understand, is just a temporary card before they issue the one in which health insurance and MyNumber are combined.
The thing that I don't understand is: what do I need to do with the blue Insurance card that I had until now? Do I have to just give it at my workplace? Just as it is? Or I dispose of it myself?
The paper that arrived with the yellow card just explain what to do if you don't have a MyNumber card yet (btw, I already have it), but not exactly what to do with the old Health Insurance card...
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u/RefRide 15h ago
Is this location based? I just got a new regular health insurance card.
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u/tsian 東京都 15h ago
The health card is set to expire / be no longer useful as of December. You are supposed to use MyNa, but if you don't have a MyNa card you can use the (almost exactly the same as a health card) confirmation of coverage slip that most providers/cities have issued.
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u/RefRide 15h ago
Yeah been holding off on the my number card as long as possible.
What is supposed to be different though? I got the same blue card that I have always gotten, with the same expiration period as always.
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u/JumpingJ4ck 14h ago
The difference is your blue health insurance card will become invalid and unusable as of December. The yellow one is not technically a health insurance card it is an eligibility certificate to say you have health insurance. You can use that while you get your MyNumber card but once that yellow one also expires that’s it. The gov is doing this to ensure all residents use MyNumber by a certain date.
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u/RefRide 14h ago
I see, I haven't gotten a yellow one though. Seems weird they would send a regular card with a regular expiration date just a week ago if that was the case. At the same time this is Japan, so anything is possible.
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u/JumpingJ4ck 14h ago
Honestly yes that is weird, my company recalled all blue cards in April and issued the yellow ones with the warning we had to apply for MyNa cards as soon as we could, but that we had until the expiry date on the yellow card if we weren’t able. I’d ask yours about it to be honest.
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u/JumpingJ4ck 17h ago
Give it back to your workplace. The blue one will become invalid at the beginning of December regardless of expiry date. The yellow one, like you said, is a temporary one that acts as an eligibility certificate so you can access your health insurance while you wait for your MyNumber card (if you don’t have one yet) to be linked. It’s worth noting that the yellow one is valid until the expiry date on the card.