Kidney Disability Reassessment Cycle Extended from 2 to 4 Years... "Reducing Registration Review Inconvenience"

Four Additional Disability Types Including Ji-che Jang-ae and Ji-jeok Jang-ae Added to Pediatric and Adolescent Specialist Diagnoses

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] To reduce the inconvenience of disability registration assessments, the reassessment cycle for the degree of disability for kidney-disabled individuals will be extended from 2 years to 4 years.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on the 27th that the amendment to the "Welfare of Persons with Disabilities Act" and related laws, including this content, will be enforced starting from the 28th.

According to this amendment, the reassessment cycle for the degree of disability for kidney-disabled individuals will be extended from the existing 2 years to 4 years. Additionally, if there is no change in the disability condition after three reassessments, it will be recognized as a research disability, allowing the individual to maintain disability registration without additional reassessment procedures.

Along with this, post-management for permanently disabled kidney-disabled individuals will be strengthened by checking the kidney transplant recipient list four times a year, and if there is a change in the disability condition, the degree of disability will be adjusted downward ex officio.

The National Pension Service (NPS), which is the disability assessment agency, will directly secure the necessary materials for the assessment, reducing the burden on applicants to submit documents. Going forward, the NPS must request assessment materials from the National Health Insurance Service, Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, and Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service, or directly verify through the computer system linked with the National Health Insurance Service. Accordingly, kidney-disabled individuals undergoing hemodialysis will no longer need to submit 3 months of hemodialysis records required for reassessment.

However, since the NPS can only secure assessment materials such as medical certificates and medical records of disability registration applicants sent by the relevant local governments, local governments must still submit medical certificates and medical records for disability assessment as before.

In addition, the types of disabilities that pediatric and adolescent specialists can diagnose will increase from the existing six (amputation, kidney, heart, respiratory, liver, epilepsy disabilities) to include four more: physical disability, brain lesion disability, speech disability, and intellectual disability.

Previously, patients receiving treatment from pediatric and adolescent specialists for four disabilities including physical disability had to visit another specialist to obtain a medical certificate for disability assessment, causing inconvenience. With this amendment, pediatric and adolescent disabled individuals will be able to receive assessment medical certificates directly from their primary care physicians.

Choi Bong-geun, Director of the Disability Policy Division at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "This is significant in that it improves the inconvenience for kidney-disabled and pediatric and adolescent disabled individuals and establishes a basis for reducing the submission of materials in all disability assessments. We will continue to strive to simplify the submission of materials."

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