Starting next year, citizens aged 56 and 66 will be able to receive lung function tests in the national health checkup. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said on the 18th that it held the 2025 first National Health Checkup Committee and decided this.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a respiratory illness in which smokers gradually become short of breath after middle age. Its prevalence is relatively high at 12%, but awareness of the disease is low at 2.3%. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has few symptoms in its early stages, making it hard to notice. Starting next year, national health checkups are expected to enable early detection of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The committee also decided to add dyslipidemia consultation fees and hemoglobin A1c tests for suspected diabetes patients to the items exempt from out-of-pocket costs when an abnormal finding in a health checkup leads to a visit to a medical institution.
Currently, when a person first visits a medical institution after a health checkup suggests suspected diabetes, out-of-pocket costs are waived for the consultation fee and fasting blood glucose test. Going forward, the hemoglobin A1c test will also be exempt from out-of-pocket costs. Currently, hypertension, tuberculosis, hepatitis C, depression, and early psychosis are also exempt from out-of-pocket costs.
The matters decided at the committee that day will be implemented starting in January next year after follow-up work in the second half of the year. Lee Hyeong-hun, the second vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "We will extend the healthy life span of the people through the national health checkup system."