Gyeonggi-do Allows Emergency Welfare Medical Expenses Application Within 30 Days After Discharge

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province is pushing for a system improvement to extend the application deadline to 'within 30 days after discharge' for the 'Emergency Welfare' support system, which many crisis-stricken residents fail to utilize properly and thus miss out on medical expense support.

On the 16th, the province announced that it has requested the Ministry of Health and Welfare to amend the enforcement decree of the 'Emergency Welfare Support Act' with this content and is also promoting consultations on social security system changes to revise the guidelines for the 'Gyeonggi Province-type Emergency Welfare.'

Emergency welfare medical support is a program that provides up to 3 million KRW (5 million KRW for Gyeonggi Province-type Emergency Welfare) for hospitalization treatment and examination costs to households with a median income of 75% or less and assets of 160 million KRW or less (for Gyeonggi Province-type Emergency Welfare, households with a median income of 90% or less and assets of 284 million KRW or less) who are unable to afford medical expenses due to severe illness or injury.

The current enforcement decree of the Emergency Welfare Support Act recognizes only applications for medical expense support before discharge based on the 'urgency principle' and requires medical institutions to pay the medical expenses.

As a result, complaints continue to arise because those who were unaware of the system during hospitalization and paid medical expenses upfront find it difficult to receive support funds.

Mr. A, a beneficiary of emergency welfare medical support residing in Suwon, was hospitalized last month due to cardiac arrest and septic shock and settled medical expenses with another person's credit card before the emergency support decision was made and was discharged.

Later, only after Mr. A's family verbally applied to the administrative welfare center before discharge and provided explanations to several institutions was he belatedly able to receive 2.7 million KRW in medical expense support.

In addition, cases often occur at eup, myeon, and dong administrative welfare centers where residents who meet income and asset support criteria take out loans or pay medical expenses with credit cards first and then complain of difficulties after discharge.

The province explained that a resident idea from the 'New Gyeonggi Proposal Contest 2020' became an opportunity to demand system improvement.

A provincial official emphasized, "We will continue to strive to ensure that low-income crisis residents who are struggling with livelihoods due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic can quickly receive the necessary support."

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