<Anchor> The



government has come up with a plan to improve health insurance.

Starting with MRI and ultrasound examinations, which are representative of the so-called 'Moon Jae-in Care', strict standards were applied to increase the burden on the person.



I am Yu Seung-hyun, a medical reporter.



<Reporter>



With the launch of 'Moon Jae-in Care' in 2018, the burden of examination expenses for patients has been greatly reduced as health insurance is partially applied to MRI and ultrasound examinations.



However, health insurance expenditures have increased significantly.



MRI and ultrasound treatment costs, which were 189.1 billion won in 2018, increased nearly 10 times to 1.8476 trillion won in 2021.



When excessive treatment was pointed out as the cause, the health authorities decided to increase the burden again by imposing strict standards on the application of health insurance.



[Park Min-soo/Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare: Brain MRI can be taken only when there is a neurological abnormality.

The number of times is 3 times, but it is limited to 2 times...

.]



The so-called 'hospital shopping', which visits the hospital several times a day, has also been strongly regulated.



Instead, we decided to invest more money in strengthening essential medical care and the essential emergency medical system.



In order to prevent another victim like a nurse from Asan Medical Center in Seoul who died last July because she could not receive surgery in time, we will change emergency medical centers in 40 regions, which are operated mainly for diagnosis, into severe emergency medical centers so that they can even receive surgery, and increase the number by 10 more.



However, there are concerns about the possibility of becoming a reality, such as the omission of local surgical measures among essential emergency surgeries.



[Lee Woo-yong/Vice President of the Korean Society of Surgery: Local surgery is almost destroyed.

It is quite unfortunate that the number of regional additions to the essential medical surgical system is not currently considered.]



The health authorities announced that they would make detailed plans for strengthening essential medical care in consultation with the medical community.