Seventeen 'returnee' dentists with no Taiwan licence, 30,000 patients, NT$57 million in insurance claims: Kaohsiung prosecutors indict the Abc Dental Alliance's founders

Taiwan does not let a foreign dental or medical degree translate directly into practice. When the Abc Dental Alliance case surfaced in June 2024, the Ministry of Health and Welfare told the Liberty Times that overseas-trained dentists who return to intern must do so at a teaching hospital, not a clinic, within quotas approved by the ministry, and must pass an academic credential review and the national licensing examination before they can be licensed. That rule is why the prosecution of the alliance, a well-known national chain with 12 clinics that the Liberty Times had earlier described as Taiwan's largest dental group, matters to any student weighing an overseas dental or medical degree.

According to the Liberty Times of 12 June 2024, the Kaohsiung City Health Bureau fined the chain's Weitai clinic NT$30,000 in December 2019 and its Fengshan clinic NT$100,000 in March 2023 after complaints that unlicensed people were treating patients, and the matter was referred to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office. At that stage the paper reported 13 suspected unlicensed practitioners and at least NT$40 million in suspect insurance claims, and said the practitioners reportedly were overseas-returned students whose schools did not meet the Ministry of Education's accreditation standards. The alliance said several of its clinics were accredited post-graduate training sites and that it had stopped internship training the previous year because of legal doubts about overseas graduates practising in clinics. The National Health Insurance Administration said that if violations were confirmed it could suspend a clinic's contract for one to three months or up to a year and recover false claims.

On 26 November 2025 the Liberty Times reported that prosecutors had concluded their investigation that day and indicted 26 people; UDN reported the same number of defendants plus seven front companies, with charges under the Criminal Organisation Act, tax, money-laundering and company law, the Physicians Act and fraud. The Liberty Times named the founder Hsieh Shang-ting, 62, his elder brother Hsieh Shang-jen, 67, the chairman, and their sister among the accused, and reported that 17 'returnee dentists' who had never obtained Taiwanese qualifications performed scaling, extractions and fillings on more than 30,000 patients over five years, generating more than NT$57 million in health insurance claims. UDN described one Philippines-trained dentist who failed the credential screening, so could neither intern nor sit the exam, yet was employed from 2006 to 2019 with his work billed under other dentists' names. Both outlets reported that the alliance's dentists were alleged to have evaded about NT$916.68 million in tax between 2016 and 2023, with cash routed through relatives' accounts, cross-held companies and property leased back to the clinics. The Hsieh siblings admitted hiring the unlicensed dentists but denied laundering and fraud, the Liberty Times reported; it added that 25 people including the founder had earlier confessed and received deferred prosecution in the NT$57 million insurance-fraud part of the case, which prosecutors intend to ask the court to revoke after any first-instance conviction.

The check that failed sat between the chair and the insurer. The health insurance system paid on the licence number of a registered dentist, and the registered dentist was not the person holding the drill. Patients in a well-known chain had no reason to ask, and no easy way to confirm, whether the person treating them was on the register.

Students should read the case backwards. If a foreign school is not recognised at home, the degree gives no route to the exam, and the only 'jobs' on offer will be ones like these. Confirm a school's recognition with the home regulator in writing before enrolling, and before any treatment in Taiwan check the practitioner on the Ministry of Health and Welfare's register rather than trusting the name on the building.