The Consumer Network for Public Interest urged the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee to immediately process the pending Tobacco Business Act amendment bill.The network stated in a release on Tuesday that the Tobacco Business Act amendment has been repeatedly obstructed during rev
Forty percent of Koreans consider all medical services covered by national health insurance to be essential medical care.A large share of people also cited "emergency, trauma, and cardiovascular care" as essential medical services that the government should provide with a sense of state responsibili
The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) will make its vast health insurance big data available through Naver.The NHIS announced on Monday the launch of a new public service, “Medical Treatment Statistics,” now available in collaboration with Naver. With just a simple search, citizens can conven
For urology practitioners already struggling to make ends meet, the government's proposed overhaul of the specimen testing outsourcing system comes as a rip-off of their last lifeline.The urologists argue that dismantling the “cross-subsidy” system—where losses from consultations, surgeries, and tre
A bill requiring up to 10 years of mandatory service for regional doctors passed the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee on Thursday.However, lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties voiced concerns, calling it “legislation without a big-picture plan” for the government’s “
As the government moves to reorganize tertiary hospitals to focus on critically ill and complex patients, experts are urging the institutional inclusion of hospital pharmacists as essential personnel in intensive care settings.They argue that multidisciplinary, team-based care is critical to reducin
The Korea Alliance of Patient Organizations has called for improving the Ministry of Health and Welfare's “Parallel Approval, Evaluation, and Negotiation Pilot Program.”Following the first pilot program's failure to deliver expected results, the patient group has also questioned the effectiveness of
The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) is intensifying efforts to combat healthcare fraud, launching a crackdown that targets widespread false registration of nursing personnel and the operation of unlicensed clinics.The commission said it will accept reports of healthcare fraud thro
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is revising the national lung cancer screening guidelines to expand the target population and aims to implement these changes in the first half of next year.However, the ministry emphasized that it needs clear evidence to justify expanding the target group.Jang Jae
A study in an international journal suggested that political motives, not workforce needs, drove the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s expansion of medical school enrollment. The policy was presented as a solution to regional and essential medical staff shortages, but the study noted that it focused in
Because of Korea’s rigorous health insurance reimbursement criteria for CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide) treatments, migraine patients face lower treatment accessibility than those in Japan.The reimbursement rate for CGRP treatments effective against migraines is only 5 to 15 percent of patien
Korea continues to outperform the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average across many measures of population health, access to care, and system capacity, according to the “Health at a Glance 2025” country report released last week.The latest data show that the country m
Despite concerns expressed by the medical community, the government and the governing party are accelerating efforts to establish a system for training regional doctors.Some insiders forecast that new students could be selected through a regional doctor admissions track as early as the 2027 academic
Korean doctors log 2,301 working hours annually -- 1.2 times more than the national average (1,872 hours) -- across 292.6 workdays each year, a survey showed. Trainee doctors recorded the highest annual working hours in healthcare, averaging 3,732 hours.These findings come from the “National Physici
As Korea's advanced regenerative medicine market rapidly expands, there is an urgent need for guidelines on treatment costs and the scope of eligible diseases, a report said.Expectations are growing that the “Act on the Safety and Support of Advanced Regenerative Medicine and Advanced Biopharmaceuti
Obesity affects one in three adults in Korea, with men nearly twice as likely to be obese as women.According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), new findings from the 2024 Community Health Survey -- conducted across 17 major localities -- reveal that 34.4 percent of adults wer
Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Hyung-hoon has urged the international community to unite resources for universal health coverage and sustainable health financing at the recent G20 Health Ministers’ Meeting.The ministry announced that Vice Minister Lee led Korea’s delegation to the G20 Healt
Poor working conditions and uncertainty about their impact on regional healthcare are undermining the public health physician system.Public health doctors emphasize that to strengthen regional, essential, and public healthcare, the government must first reform and improve the public health physician
Despite a global economic slowdown, Korea’s health industry has shown remarkable resilience, with cumulative exports surpassing $20 billion for the first time as of the third quarter of 2025. Both pharmaceuticals and cosmetics posted double-digit growth, driving overall expansion at a pace nearly si
The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) overestimated personnel expenses by about 600 billion won ($414 million) over eight years and distributed the surplus among its employees, according to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC).The ACRC announced on Thursday that from 2016 to
