What claims data in Japan cannot show you

A rare disease with no predecessor drug has no prescribing history to target from. Dentistry outside insurance coverage — orthodontics, implants, whitening — never appears in claims at all. What a hospital is equipped and authorised to do sits in its notifications and on its website, not in its billing. A clinic opening next quarter has no claims history by definition. And long-term care runs on an entirely separate system from medical insurance.

SCUEL exists to fill those gaps. It is not a replacement for claims data — it is what you need alongside it.

Start here

If you are new to the Japanese market.

Market entry The first thing that breaks when you enter Japan is your customer list Why the advertised specialty tells you nothing, why claims data has a hole in it, and how to start with only the facilities and physicians that match your criteria rather than licensing everything. Facility identity Japan publishes a facility code. Do not build your master data on it It changes when a hospital moves or is sold, gets reused, and issues two codes to one building with a medical and a dental practice. Nothing errors — which is why companies find out years later.

By problem

Six areas where the answer is not in the billing record.

Rare disease When there is no predecessor drug, there is no prescribing history to target from Two axes that work from published evidence instead: the facilities treating the condition, and the physicians whose trials, funded research and certifications point to the same expertise. Website analysis Japanese hospitals publish more about themselves than you would expect Conditions treated, tests available down to the method, specialty clinics by day of the week, equipment by model. SCUEL RD reads it and returns a facility list with the reasoning attached. Home and long-term care Care in Japan keeps moving out of the hospital, and the data does not follow Home care activity is reported to the authorities and not published. We obtain it by disclosure request — patient counts, visit volumes separated by type, and where deaths occurred. Vaccines From outside Japan this looks like one market. It is 1,747 Uptake of voluntary vaccination depends on municipal subsidies, and each municipality sets its own terms. We compiled them by reading every municipal website by hand. New openings A clinic that has not opened yet has no supplier to displace Equipment, systems and suppliers are chosen at once, by someone with no incumbent to protect. Planned openings are visible six months ahead; confirmed ones about a month after registration. Key physicians Who leads this field in Japan is one of the first questions, and the hardest to answer from outside Certifications, trials, funded research and conference presentations, combined with institutional context into an order you can defend internally — with every component left visible.

Before you get in touch

Two things worth reading first.

How we work with clients outside Japan — correspondence is in English throughout, but analysis reports are written in Japanese and meetings are held in Japanese. Better to know now than halfway through.

Who already uses this — the pharmaceutical, device and healthcare IT companies working with us in Japan.

About us — who we are, why the company started with rare disease, and the registration details your procurement team will ask for.

Tell us what you are trying to decide and we will come back with what we hold, what it costs, and what it will not tell you.

Send an enquiry

Engagements typically start from several million Japanese yen — indicatively, tens of thousands of US dollars. The US dollar figure is for scale only and is not a quoted price. Scope, coverage and contract term determine the final figure.