The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently announced proposed amendments to the enforcement decree and rules of the Act on Supporting Overseas Expansion of Medical Services and Attraction of International Patients, establishing a clearer legal basis for investigating fees and medical charges at facilities catering to foreign patients.
Under the existing law, the ministry is authorized to examine commission fees — payments that medical institutions make to brokers for attracting foreign patients — as well as the medical charges levied on those patients. However, the scope of duties that could be delegated to its supporting agency, the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), had remained ambiguous until now.
Ministry officials say the law had long allowed for such investigations but that the delegation framework under the enforcement decree lacked clarity, adding that the revised rules would also require medical institutions to report commission fees and medical charges when submitting their annual performance records.
The ministry noted that the amendments do not impose new mandatory obligations and that reporting systems were already in place, meaning significant changes on the ground were not expected. Authorities said they hope the clearer mandate will help generate reliable policy statistics on the foreign patient attraction market.
According to a statistical report by the KHIDI, the number of unique foreign patients treated in South Korea in 2024 — excluding repeat visits — reached about 1.17 million, surging 93.2 percent from the previous year.
It marked the first time the figure has crossed the 1 million threshold since the medical tourism program began in 2009, when just about 60,000 foreign patients were recorded.
Among foreign visitors that year, about 919,000 patients who used overseas-issued cards spent a combined 1.4 trillion won ($972 million) on medical services, averaging about 1.5 million won per person.
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