Innovative Medical Technologies for Myocardial Infarction Treatment and Stomach Cancer Prediction to Receive Health Insurance Coverage

Ministry of Health and Welfare Holds the 12th Health Insurance Policy Deliberation Committee Meeting
Temporary Health Insurance Application for Innovative Medical Technologies No. 1 and No. 3

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] Innovative medical technologies related to myocardial infarction and stomach cancer have been approved for health insurance coverage. This is the first time that innovative medical technologies have been covered by health insurance.

On the 2nd, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that it held a meeting of the Health Insurance Policy Deliberation Committee (건정심), the highest decision-making body for health insurance, and resolved to revise the health insurance fee-for-service and non-covered service lists and the relative value scale for fees.

The two medical procedures approved at this 건정심 meeting are the 1st and 3rd innovative medical technologies, which will be temporarily covered by health insurance starting this August. The decision on coverage was made after expert evaluation committee reviews and the 건정심, based on medical significance, substitutability, whether it determines the direction of disease treatment, and opinions from related academic societies.

Innovative medical technology is a system implemented in March 2019 that allows priority market entry followed by post-market reevaluation for technologies where research result accumulation is difficult but safety is secured, by additionally evaluating values such as revolutionary improvement in patients' lives and reduction of patients' financial burden.

The 3rd innovative medical technology, "Autologous Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Therapy for Myocardial Regeneration," is expected to improve myocardial function through myocardial regeneration in acute myocardial infarction patients who have not responded to existing treatments. With this decision, a temporary selective coverage of 90% will be applied. The fee is approximately 1.64 million KRW.

The 1st innovative medical technology, "Genetic Diagnostic Test for Prognosis Prediction of Stomach Cancer," measures gene expression levels in stomach cancer tissues of stage 2-3 advanced stomach cancer patients to provide prognosis information on 5-year survival rates. Through this 건정심 decision, it will be covered by health insurance as a temporary non-covered service.

Innovative medical technologies are assigned preliminary codes and are temporarily covered by health insurance for 3 to 5 years, after which coverage is determined through reevaluation for formal registration in health insurance.

A Ministry of Health and Welfare official stated, "Through this decision, we expect to establish a virtuous cycle structure that grants opportunities for medical technology advancement while considering the principles of health insurance," and added, "We will closely monitor the usage status of innovative medical technologies and continuously collect and supplement feedback from the field."

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