"Nylon Patients" Who Rushed to Korean Medicine Hospitals for Minor Scratches... The 8-Week Rule Has Dropped

Appropriateness Review Required for Grade 12 to 14 Patients Exceeding Eight Weeks of Treatment
Expected to Curb Insurance Leakage, but Medical Community Backlash Remains a Variable

Starting in April, a so?called "8-week rule" will be introduced, under which traffic-accident patients with minor injuries will have to undergo a separate review if they wish to receive treatment for more than eight weeks. The aim is for a public institution to determine whether long-term treatment is necessary for patients with relatively minor injuries in grades 12 to 14, in order to curb excessive medical treatment under automobile insurance and prevent leakage of insurance payouts.

Recently, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it plans to implement the amended Enforcement Rules of the Guarantee of Automobile Accident Compensation Act from April 1. Financial authorities have also announced revisions to related insurance business supervisory regulations and have begun preparing for the implementation of the system. However, the specific review criteria and operating methods are still in the process of being finalized in detail.

The core of the system is that if a patient with minor injuries wishes to continue treatment beyond eight weeks, the appropriateness of such treatment must be verified through a review by an institution designated by law. Statistics showing that more than 90% of patients with minor injuries complete treatment within eight weeks form the basis of this system. It also reflects analysis indicating that, in practice, while the average treatment period for patients who do not exceed eight weeks is about two weeks, cases that go beyond eight weeks often lead to long-term treatment of 21 weeks or more.

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The government expects this measure to help reduce so?called "nylon patients" (those who feign or exaggerate injuries) and stabilize the loss ratio of automobile insurance. Another background factor behind the initiative is that large non-life insurers recorded automobile insurance loss ratios in the 96% range last year, leading to accumulated deficits. Within the industry, there are projections that if insurance losses decrease, there could be room to lower premiums in the future.

The review is expected to be conducted not by insurance companies but by a public institution under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. This reflects concerns that fairness could be undermined if insurers were directly involved. The Korea Insurance Development Institute is also developing a system that analyzes treatment data by gender, age, and injury grade to suggest appropriate numbers of treatment days, and this system is expected to be used to help the new scheme take root smoothly.

However, resistance from the medical community, particularly from Korean medicine practitioners, is expected to be a variable. They argue that there is insufficient medical evidence for using an eight-week standard and that it could restrict patients' freedom to choose their treatment. There are also voices in clinical settings pointing out that, because pain is inherently difficult to measure objectively, it is problematic to judge the necessity of long-term treatment based solely on a time-based criterion.

In response, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has stressed that this is "not a system that prohibits treatment beyond eight weeks, but a procedure to confirm the necessity through additional documentation," emphasizing that the system does not restrict treatment itself.