OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the 3-year National Health Insurance reimbursements among atrial fibrillation (AF) patients with and without stroke in one year in Taiwan.  METHODS:  The data were retrieved from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database, which consists 1,000,000 Taiwanese people’s claimed data from 2005 to 2008. The study cohort consisted of 17,427 patients with newly diagnosed AF in 2005 and 537 occurred stroke in 2006. Each patient was individually followed-up for 3 years period from 2006 to 2008. The generalized linear model (GLZM) was used to estimate the health care reimbursements and the risk to hospitalize among AF patients. RESULTS:  The estimated incidence rate of atrial fibrillation was 1.74% per person year. Besides, among AF patients, the estimated incidence of stroke was 3.08% per person year. After adjusting for age and sex, AF patients with stroke had statistically significant higher outpatient reimbursement (NTD$44, 941 vs 38,078/person-year) and inpatient reimbursement (NTD$ 1,630,222 vs. 960,702/person-year) than AF patients without stroke. Also, the results of GLZM revealed a statistically significant hazard ratio to be hospitalized in AF patients with stroke (HR=1.93; 95% CI=1.73-2.15, p-value<0.001). AF patients with stroke, however, did not have statistically significant difference of annual outpatient visits from AF patients without stroke (33 vs 32 times/person-year).  CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that AF patients with stroke were found to utilize significantly more national health insurance reimbursements than AF-alone patients and also to be at a significant higher risk of hospitalization during a 3-year follow-up period after diagnosis.