Last Year, Per Capita Health Insurance Premium Payment Was 710,000 Won... Per Capita Medical Expense for Elderly Population Was 4,870,000 Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] It was reported that the average annual National Health Insurance premium paid per person last year was 710,000 KRW. The total collected insurance premiums amounted to 63.1114 trillion KRW. The total health insurance medical expenses incurred through this amounted to 86.7139 trillion KRW, and the benefit payments were 65.2916 trillion KRW.

The National Health Insurance Service and the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service announced on the 4th that they will publish the "2020 Health Insurance Statistical Yearbook," which contains key statistics related to health insurance.

Last year, the total amount of insurance premiums assessed was 63.1114 trillion KRW, an increase of 6.7% compared to 59.1328 trillion KRW in 2019. On a household basis, the annual premium was approximately 1.37 million KRW (monthly average 114,069 KRW), and on a per capita basis, about 710,000 KRW annually (monthly average 59,218 KRW). By subscriber type, workplace subscribers paid about 730,000 KRW annually (monthly average 61,109 KRW), and regional subscribers paid about 650,000 KRW annually (monthly average 54,165 KRW).

The medical expenses and benefit payments incurred through this exceeded the total insurance premiums. Medical expenses were 86.7139 trillion KRW, and benefit payments were 65.2916 trillion KRW, increasing by 0.7% and 0.6% respectively compared to the previous year. This excludes health insurance benefit performance, cash benefits, and health examination costs.

The average annual medical expenses for the elderly population aged 65 and over were 4.87 million KRW, a decrease of 0.8% from the previous year. However, due to the increase in the elderly population, the total medical expenses rose by 5.1% to 37.6135 trillion KRW.

The number of patients whose annual medical expenses exceeded 5 million KRW was 3.095 million, accounting for 6.6% of all patients. However, the medical expenses used by these patients totaled 43.6568 trillion KRW, accounting for 50.3% of the total medical expenses. There were also 14 patients whose medical expenses exceeded 1 billion KRW. The medical expenses they incurred amounted to 2.0805 trillion KRW, accounting for 2.4% of the total medical expenses.

The number of care institutions increased by 2.0% from 94,865 in 2019 to 96,742 last year. The medical workforce at care institutions also increased by 3.5% compared to the previous year, reaching 422,219 people.

The Health Insurance Statistical Yearbook, consisting of six parts including general health insurance status, financial status, benefit and review performance, adequacy evaluation, and disease statistics, will be available for viewing from the 5th on the National Health Insurance Service website and the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service website. The database will also be registered and serviced on the KOSIS system, the national statistics portal of Statistics Korea.

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