Allowing Installation of CT and MRI in Hospitals in Medically Underserved Areas with Few Beds

Partial Amendment Notice of the "Regulations on Installation and Operation of Special Medical Equipment"
Establishing Exceptions to Installation Standards Considering Medical Institutions and Regional Characteristics

The government will relax the criteria to allow hospitals in military areas and cities with populations under 100,000, which are medically underserved areas, to install special medical equipment such as Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and mammography devices regardless of the size of their bed capacity.

On the 31st, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that it will give prior notice of the partial amendment to the "Regulations on the Installation and Operation of Special Medical Equipment," which includes these changes, until December 10.

Currently, under the law, expensive special medical equipment can only be installed in hospitals above a certain scale. For MRI, only medical institutions with 200 or more beds in city or county areas can install them; for CT, only medical institutions with 200 or more beds in city areas and 100 or more beds in military areas are allowed to install them. This restriction is based on concerns that allowing expensive equipment in areas with fewer beds could trigger excessive medical treatment. However, medical institutions in military areas and other regions with limited medical resources have raised concerns that these criteria are excessively restrictive when they want to install special medical equipment.

The amendment first establishes grounds for the Minister of Health and Welfare to recognize exceptions to the installation criteria by considering the characteristics of the medical institution and the region wishing to install the equipment. It also establishes a Special Medical Equipment Management Committee to comprehensively review the necessity of granting exceptions. Additionally, considering the medical necessity of CT and the distribution of beds in military areas, the facility standard for CT in military areas will be relaxed from the current "100 or more beds" to "50 or more beds."

Kim Guk-il, Director of Health Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "With this amendment to the enforcement regulations, medical institutions in medically underserved areas are expected to appropriately provide medical services using special medical equipment." He added, "Through ongoing research projects and gathering opinions from the medical community and experts, we will promptly prepare additional improvement plans for the overall system related to special medical equipment, such as the joint usage consent system."

The public notice period for this amendment is until December 10. The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to finalize the amendment after collecting various opinions during the public notice period.

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