For Korea’s digital healthcare startups, especially artificial intelligence-based ones, to grow, the government must introduce a separate insurance coverage system for the sector, an industry executive said recently.

A doctor-turned-investor said so on social media on Tuesday, causing quite a stir in the industry. Earlier in the day, President Yoon Suk Yeol emphasized the need to develop bio-health into a second semiconductor industry while chairing a meeting to discuss strategies to create a new bio-health market.

Moon Yeo-jeong, executive director of IMM Investment, a venture capital, stressed the need to introduce “innovative reimbursement” in her article.

“Korea is the only country worldwide where individuals’ medical data from birth to death are accumulated well,” Moon said. She added that the nation’s healthcare startups could have the world’s best technology using medical data, the Health and Welfare Ministry’s preemptive regulatory reform, the SME and Startup Ministry’s fund-raising fund, and venture capital investment.

“Korean startups’ sales should grow to take the global industry with world-class technology,” she said. “However, it is regrettable the healthcare startups’ domestic revenue, especially those earned by insurance benefits, is zero.”

For example, Moon said, a company that earns nearly 14 billion won ($10.6 million) in 40 countries had no domestic sales through insurance benefits. She pointed out that U.S. insurers pay between $76 and $1,520 if companies analyze medical images using AI, but their Korean counterparts pay nothing.

“There are AI medical devices in Korea developed by more than 100 engineers spending several hundreds of millions of won over five years,” Moon said. “Suppose these startups stop making innovative products due to no insurance benefits. In that case, will Koreans enjoy healthier life than now?”

She then called for politicians and related government agencies to provide insurance benefits for medical products developed by digital healthcare companies.

“I hope they will create an environment where the startups receive proper reimbursement for their innovative products and reinvest the money into new technology,” Moon said. “If the government gives optimal rewards to innovative companies, it will speed startups’ technological development and advance to overseas markets based on the domestic revenue.

She said, “Please help the Korean startups lead the global healthcare industry through an ‘innovative reimbursement’ system.”