Ministry of Health and Welfare Announces Legislative and Administrative Notice on Enforcement Decree Amendment Expanding Catastrophic Medical Expense Support Scope and Limits

Disaster Medical Expense Support Project (Photo by Ministry of Health and Welfare)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] The scope of catastrophic medical expense support, aimed at assisting households burdened with enormous medical costs due to rare and intractable diseases, will be expanded.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on the 7th that it will conduct a legislative and administrative notice starting from the 8th to revise subordinate laws and administrative rules related to catastrophic medical expenses, including the Enforcement Decree of the "Act on Catastrophic Medical Expense Support" and the "Notice on Standards for Catastrophic Medical Expense Support." The notice period is until the 18th of next month for the Enforcement Decree and until the 28th of this month for the Notice.

The proposed revision includes differentiating the catastrophic medical expense support rate, currently uniformly set at 50%, according to income levels, expanding it up to 80%, and raising the annual support limit from 20 million KRW to 30 million KRW.

A Ministry of Health and Welfare official explained, "This is to proactively respond to the decrease in household income caused by COVID-19, alleviate the excessive burden on households due to medical expenses relative to income, and prevent cases where catastrophic medical expense support is not provided due to exceeding the support limit when high medical expenses are incurred."

Once the Enforcement Decree is revised, recipients of basic livelihood security and lower-income brackets will be able to receive medical expense support up to 80%. Others will be supported based on the median income standard: those below 50% of the median income can receive up to 70%, those between 50% and 100% up to 60%, and those between 100% and 200% will continue to receive the current 50% support rate.

The support limit will also be raised. The current limit of 20 million KRW has been criticized as insufficient for non-reimbursable medical expenses arising from expensive anticancer drugs or new medical technologies. Accordingly, the support limit will be increased to 30 million KRW through this Notice revision.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to finalize the revision after broadly collecting public opinions during the legislative and administrative notice period. Organizations or individuals with opinions on this revision can submit them to the Medical Security Management Division of the Ministry of Health and Welfare by the 18th of next month for the Enforcement Decree and by the 28th of this month for the Notice.

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