OSAKA -- Hiromi Hase, 58, and her husband, Michio, were shocked last August when they found out they might have overpaid about 4 million yen when she was hospitalized for leukemia in 1996 and 1997.
According to a newspaper article they read, many hospitals were charging -- without patients' consent and against government rules -- for use of so-called special rooms, typically private rooms.
The rules say that a hospital can charge a patient for the use of a special room only when the patient asks for it and not when it is necessary for the treatment.