The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) created a separate task force to push the “Moon Jae-in care,” a plan by President Moon to drastically expand the national health insurance coverage.

Sohn Young-rae손영래, a ministry director who was in charge of enhancing insurance coverage for three major uninsured medicines in the Park Geun-hye administration, will head the ad hoc team.

Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo박능후 will specify the duty and composition of the task force through an official appointment.

“The task force will operate separately within the Healthcare Policy Office to expand the insurance coverage of uninsured drugs,” a ministry official told reporters. “Its roles will be different from those of healthcare policy division, insurance payment division and pharmaceutical insurance division, and go all out work out follow-up measures to implement Moon Jae-in care.”

Another ministry official said the task force would also contact with the medical community to work out action plans for the Moon Jae-in care and tackle the issue of low medical fees.

“Our road map to detailed actions will include reclassifying 3,800 uninsured drugs by the frequency of prescriptions,” the official said. “The cooperation with the medical sector is so essential that we will make a consultative group with the Korean Medical Association (KMA)대한의사협회 and the Korean Hospital Association (KHA)대한병원협회 for further discussion.”

Noting that President Moon had sought ways to tackle the issue of low medical prices before announcing his plan to enhance health insurance coverage, the official said the ministry would discuss the reasonable level of medical fees along with the medical community.

Moon’s policy to expand health insurance coverage, which the President announced himself on Aug. 9, aims to turn all uncovered treatments into covered ones except for beauty treatments and cosmetic surgeries. Accordingly, medical insurance will cover MRI and ultrasound, which is essential for treatment, by 2022.

In particular, the ministry will remove the limits on frequency and number of treatments for health insurance coverage by 2018. As the market for MRI and ultrasound is large, the government plans to make a road map to remove the numerical limits for these services by 2020.

Some treatments that are less cost effective will be under limited coverage, which differentiates patients’ burdens to 50 percent, 70 percent, and 90 percent of the total cost with the ministry deciding their continuity through assessment in three to five years.

The selected coverage will include 800 medical treatments, such as sonogram and herniated disk surgery, and 3,000 treatment materials such as surgery materials and dental fillings.

The National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency(NECA)한국보건의료연구원 will assess the selected coverage. After the review, the agency will recommend the ministry to cancel medical coverage for drugs that have low safety and efficacy and exempt them from the private health insurance coverage, too.

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