About

Japanese clinics are divided into specialized departments, such as internal medicine or dermatology, and there is no General Practitioner system officially. Patients must decide which department to visit, according to which part of the body they have symptoms with.

Apart from specialist clinics, many clinics do not require appointments. They have walk-in, first- come-first-served system.

Most clinics are open on weekdays. Opening hours are usually from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Keep in mind that there is a lunch break for one or two hours between morning and afternoon consultations.

Many clinics are open on Saturday mornings, but closed in the afternoon. On Sundays and Public holidays, most clinics are closed all day.

It is strongly recommended to call or check their website to see if they are open before you go. In particular, small clinics or hospitals tend to have irregular hours/holidays.

Almost all clinics join Japanese Health Insurance and charge 30 per cent of total fee to patients.
To give you an idea of how much they charge, say you had a runny nose and saw a regular internal medicine doctor the first visit would be around 1,000-2,000 yen with Japanese Insurance. The second visit would be less than 1,000 yen. The first visit is more expensive because they charge the first visit fee. This fee doesn’t include the medication. You get medication from a prescription pharmacy.