Patients Using Emergency Room for 'Non-Emergency and Mild Cases' Must Bear 90% of Medical Fees

Ministry of Health and Welfare Announces Legislative Notice for Partial Amendment of Enforcement Rules of the National Health Insurance Act

From now on, non-emergency and mild patients who use the emergency rooms of regional emergency medical centers or tertiary general hospitals will have to bear 90% of the medical expenses themselves.

On the 23rd, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a partial amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the National Health Insurance Act and decided to collect opinions until the 30th.

The amendment includes provisions that non-emergency patients and mild emergency patients classified under the Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS) who visit regional emergency medical centers, regional trauma centers, or specialized emergency medical centers will have a 90% co-payment rate for emergency room medical fees.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare expects that increasing the co-payment for emergency room fees for non-emergency and mild emergency patients using regional emergency medical centers will help prevent overcrowding in emergency rooms and contribute to timely admission of severe emergency patients.

Previously, the Ministry discussed various measures to strengthen compensation for medical staff so that large hospital emergency rooms can focus on treating severe and emergency patients, while also restricting the use by mild and non-emergency patients.

On the previous day, Park Min-su, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters briefing during the doctors' collective action, "It is necessary to minimize the traffic of mild or non-emergency patients," and announced, "We will promote measures to further increase the outpatient co-payment rate from the current 50-60% for patients classified as KTAS levels 4-5 who use regional emergency medical centers or local emergency medical centers."