From the New Year, 'Disastrous Medical Expenses' Support Threshold Eased... Lowering Medical Expense Burden and Asset Criteria

Medical Expense Overburden Threshold Reduced from 15% to 10% of Income
Property Standard Raised from 540 Million Won to 700 Million Won or Less

Disaster Medical Expense Support Project.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] The threshold for 'catastrophic medical expenses' support to alleviate the burden on households with excessive medical costs will be significantly lowered starting this year.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that it will implement a partial amendment to the "Notice on Standards for Catastrophic Medical Expense Support" from the 1st of this month.

Catastrophic medical expense support is a system that provides 50-80% coverage of certain insured and uninsured medical expenses not covered by the out-of-pocket maximum payment system, depending on income level, when the annual out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed a certain proportion of the household's annual income and the household's assets are below a certain amount.

First, starting this year, the medical expense burden threshold for households with income below 100% of the median income (5.4 million KRW for a four-person household this year) will be lowered from exceeding 15% of annual household income to exceeding 10%.

Accordingly, if the support recipient belongs to a four-person household at 100% of the median income, previously, medical expenses had to exceed 5.9 million KRW to qualify for support, but from this year, support can be received if expenses exceed 4.1 million KRW.

The asset criteria for selecting support recipients will also be relaxed from a total taxable standard amount of 540 million KRW to 700 million KRW, reflecting the rise in publicly announced land prices.

Citizens in need of catastrophic medical expense support can visit local branches of the National Health Insurance Service for consultation and application, and applications can be made at medical institutions during hospitalization.

No Jeong-hoon, Director of Essential Medical Services at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "By lowering the application threshold for the catastrophic medical expense support system, which is a pillar of the medical safety net, we can provide broader support to vulnerable groups in need amid difficult economic conditions," adding, "starting with this system improvement, we plan to continuously improve support standards to enhance the effectiveness of the catastrophic medical expense support project."