It has been found that 10% of participants involved in illegal establishments known as ‘Samu-jang hospitals’ or ‘license lending pharmacies’ re-enter these institutions even after being caught.
According to the National Health Insurance Service on the 28th, from September 2020 to August 2022, 506 medical institutions at the hospital level or higher were newly established, and among them, 60 institutions employed existing participants (72 people). This means the re-entry rate was 11.9%.
Among the 60 hospital-level medical institutions employing existing participants, Korean medicine hospitals accounted for the largest proportion with 25 institutions (41.7%). This was followed by nursing hospitals (21 institutions, 35.0%) and hospitals (11 institutions, 18.3%) in order.
Looking at the regional distribution of illegal establishments with re-entry, Gyeonggi Province ranked first with 20 institutions (33.3%). This was followed by Gwangju (11 institutions, 18.4%) and Incheon (6 institutions, 10.0%).
Among the total 2,255 repeat offenders involved in illegal establishments, 72 were working at newly established hospital-level or higher medical institutions. Of these, 41 were medical personnel including 40 doctors and 1 pharmacist, and 31 were non-medical personnel. Notably, among 22 repeat offenders caught two or more times in the past, 15 were non-medical personnel, an overwhelmingly high number. All six individuals caught three or more times were non-medical personnel, with two of them caught up to five times.
A revision to the Medical Service Act requiring review by the Medical Institution Establishment Committee (the Committee) when establishing hospital-level medical institutions has been in effect since September 2020. However, since all committee members are medical personnel and members of medical institution organizations, it is difficult to know the past involvement of new medical institution founders and staff in illegal establishments.
An official from the National Health Insurance Service said, “A bill was proposed in January 2021 to allow the National Health Insurance Service to actively participate in the Committee to prevent illegal establishments in advance, but it is still pending in the Health and Welfare Committee, making it difficult to proactively block offenders from entering illegal establishments.”
There are also calls for stronger penalties against participants in illegal establishments. According to the National Health Insurance Service, among 13 medical institutions with suspected illegal establishment involvement where participants re-entered, the total amount fined for illegal establishments was approximately 78.3 billion KRW, but unpaid fines amounted to about 71.4 billion KRW (91.2%). This means that offenders enter new illegal establishments without paying the amounts illegally obtained.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
