"Reform Current Fee-for-Service System to Expand Essential Medical Services"

There was an opinion that reforming the current fee-for-service payment system is urgent to expand essential medical services.

Professor Kim Jin-hyun of Seoul National University College of Nursing said on the afternoon of the 6th at the 3rd Medical Security Innovation Forum held at Yonsei University Severance Building in Jung-gu, Seoul, under the theme of "Innovative Directions for Health Insurance Payment Systems to Strengthen Regional and Essential Medical Services," "The current fee-for-service payment system has contributed to the expansion of healthcare infrastructure but has structural limitations that inevitably lead to continuous increases in financial expenditures." Professor Kim added, "There is a problem that health insurance finances are not adequately supported in essential medical fields and other necessary areas, so fundamental reform is urgently needed."

Following this, Shin Hyun-woong, Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, presented future directions for the health insurance compensation system to strengthen essential medical services and ensure the sustainability of health insurance finances. Shin suggested that the proportion of the fee-for-service system, which accounts for 93.4%, should be reduced, and that the payment system should be diversified to include ▲compensation for essential medical services ▲institutional performance compensation ▲and cooperative care compensation among medical institutions to enhance the problem-solving capacity of the health insurance system.

Jung Yoon-soon, Director of the Health Insurance Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated, "The current input-centered payment and compensation system makes it difficult to respond to various social demands such as addressing the financial sustainability crisis due to the transition to a super-aged society and overcoming regional and essential medical crises." She added, "The government plans to present structural reform measures for innovating the health insurance payment and compensation system and various public policy fee models in the 2nd Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan to be announced in the second half of this year, and to prepare an implementation roadmap to promote these measures with a sense of urgency."

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