Simplified Indemnity Use Rate at 1%... 'Silson24' Hospital Participation Remains a Challenge

#Ms. A, a woman in her 50s, felt a sharp pain in her pelvis earlier this month and visited a famous joint specialist hospital in Seoul. She opened the ‘Silson24’ application (app) to conveniently claim her indemnity insurance, but the hospital she visited was not linked with Silson24. As a result, Ms. A had to manually collect documents such as medical bills, receipts, and prescriptions to claim her insurance, just like before.

The usage rate of the ‘Indemnity Insurance Claim Simplification’ service, which allows claiming indemnity insurance via smartphone, was found to be only 1%. Although hundreds of thousands of subscribers flocked to the service upon hearing that they no longer needed to collect documents to claim insurance, experts point out that increasing the participation speed of the medical community is necessary to enhance users’ perceived convenience.

According to data requested by Assemblyman Shin Jang-sik of the Innovation Party and the Financial Services Commission from the Korea Insurance Development Institute on the 6th, the number of subscribers to the indemnity insurance claim digitalization app ‘Silson24’ reached 363,988 as of the 4th. Since its launch, Silson24 has consistently ranked first in downloads on platforms such as Google Play.

However, only 1.4% of Silson24 subscribers actually claimed insurance through the app. As of the 4th, the number of indemnity insurance claims made via the app was 5,373.

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The slow increase in indemnity insurance claims is attributed to the still low participation of the medical community. From the service launch date on the 25th of last month, only 210 hospitals were able to use the digitalized claim service immediately, with 8 more added over ten days, totaling 218 as of the 4th. This accounts for only 2.8% of the total 7,725 hospital-level medical institutions, including hospitals with 30 or more beds and public health centers.

A Financial Services Commission official explained, “It is still in the early stages. Although the number of subscribers has greatly increased due to expectations of reducing hassle in the insurance claim process, the number of hospitals connected to Silson24’s system is small, making it difficult for the number of claims to increase significantly.”

Accordingly, since the Financial Services Commission cannot compel hospitals to participate, it plans to indirectly encourage participation by strengthening consumer choice. The commission believes that as the number of Silson24 users grows, the medical community will find it difficult to continue outright refusal to participate. To facilitate this, the Financial Services Commission has provided a ‘Find Nearby Hospitals’ feature within the app and launched a notification service in collaboration with MyData service providers such as Naver, Kakao, and Toss to alert users when they are paying at participating hospitals.

A Financial Services Commission official stated, “Once the number of Silson24 participating hospitals exceeds 1,000, hospitals will likely join the digitalized insurance claim process considering consumer benefits. Currently, hundreds of hospitals are in the process of system connection, and we expect to reach 1,000 participating hospitals by the end of the year.”

Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Byung-hwan also mentioned at a press briefing held at the Government Seoul Office on the 30th of last month, “We accept all criticisms regarding the digitalization of indemnity insurance claims. We will actively communicate with the medical community and expand the provision of information on participating hospitals so that the public can easily find them.”

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