The government will overhaul the health insurance fee schedule, worth 130 trillion won annually, to strengthen compensation for regional and essential care. It will develop national university hospitals as hubs for regional care and pursue parallel investments for regional physicians.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Planning and Budget, and the Ministry of Education held a roundtable on the 25th at Chungnam National University Sejong Hospital to discuss the supply system for regional and essential care. The presidents of 10 national university hospitals also attended.
The government decided to introduce public policy fees in essential care fields that are high risk and low compensation. It will improve the payment structure by supplementing the existing volume-based fee schedule to reward clinical performance at the institution or network level.
It will systematize the division of roles and care coordination between hub hospitals and clinics and strengthen network-level compensation. It will also expand facility and equipment investments for national university hospitals and regional responsibility medical institutions—which total about 200 billion won this year—next year as well, to bolster final treatment capacity for critically ill patients.
It will expand support for medical personnel who can be deployed immediately, such as contract-based regional essential physicians and senior physicians expanded this year, to improve access to care in vulnerable areas. With the regional physician system introduced, it will also make parallel investments to train future regional physicians.
Jeong Gyeong-sil, director general for health care policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "We will continue to improve the system so that national university hospitals serve as the backbone of regional care and provide roles such as residency training." Cho Yong-beom, budget director at the Ministry of Planning and Budget, said, "We will expand fiscal support focusing on three tasks: narrowing regional disparities, expanding essential care, and strengthening public health care."