Customs Service and HIRA Collaborate to Strengthen Health Insurance Financial Soundness

Noh Seok-hwan, Commissioner of the Korea Customs Service (right), and Kim Seung-taek, President of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, are signing a business agreement to strengthen the soundness of health insurance finances at the Government Complex Daejeon on the 10th. Photo by Korea Customs Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Customs Service is joining forces with the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) to prevent leakage in health insurance finances.

On the 10th, the Korea Customs Service announced that it signed a business agreement with HIRA at the Government Complex Daejeon to strengthen the soundness of health insurance finances.

The agreement was made with the intention of mutual cooperation between the two organizations to enhance the soundness of health insurance finances, considering the recent continuous detection of companies importing medical supplies by manipulating their prices to be high.

The Korea Customs Service will provide import clearance information to HIRA to help verify the authenticity of data submitted by importers or to be used during the re-evaluation of insurance benefits. Meanwhile, HIRA will provide the Korea Customs Service with information on insurance fees for medical supplies registered as eligible for health insurance, health insurance claim data, and suspected price manipulation information, enabling the Customs Service to use this data for crackdowns on import price manipulation. This is the core content of the agreement.

The Korea Customs Service has previously collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and HIRA to detect importers who manipulated prices of health insurance medical supplies, shared the results to recover unfair profits, and re-evaluated insurance fees, achieving significant outcomes.

No Seok-hwan, Commissioner of the Korea Customs Service, stated, “To realize the ‘strengthening of inter-ministerial cooperation and enhancement of financial performance and sustainability’ mentioned at the recent Cabinet members’ workshop, we will combine our capabilities with HIRA and focus on securing the soundness of health insurance finances.” He added, “We will also strive to reduce the medical expenses burden on the public by ensuring the soundness of health insurance finances.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.