2024-04-29 10:52:51
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 29th, the number of foreign patients who visited Korea last year was 605,768, a 2.4-fold increase (144.2%) from 248,110 in 2022, recording the highest number ever.
This figure is a tally of patients who received treatment while being foreigners who do not reside in Korea and who are not health insurance subscribers or dependents.
This is a 1.2 times increase from the performance in 2019 (497,464), when the largest number of foreign patients were attracted before the COVID-19 epidemic, and is the highest performance ever since 2009, when the attraction of foreign patients was permitted.
The number of foreign patients steadily increased until 2019 (average annual increase of 23.5%), but plummeted to 120,000 in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a three-year recovery phase, the cumulative number of foreign patients reached 3,877,342, including a record high in 2023.
Looking at the nationality of foreign patients in 2023, the largest number were Japanese patients (31%, 188,000 people). This was followed by China (18.5%, 112,000 people), the United States (12.7%, 77,000 people), and Thailand (5.1%, 30,000 people).
The Ministry of Health and Welfare explained, “The number of plastic and dermatology patients has increased significantly in Japan. For the first time since the statistics on attracting patients were compiled in 2009, the country recorded the largest number of foreign patients (ranked first) among all countries.”
By treatment subject, dermatology was the most common (35.2%, 239,000 people), followed by plastic surgery (16.8%, 114,000 people), internal medicine (13.4%, 90,000 people), and examination centers (7.4%, 50,000 people).
By size of medical institution, more patients visited clinics (66.5%, 402,000) than general hospitals (13.5%, 81,000) and tertiary general hospitals (10.6%, 64,000).
By region, 78.1% (473,000) of all foreign patients visited hospitals and clinics in the Seoul region.
Jeong Eun-young, director of the Health Industry Policy Department at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, “We plan to expand government support and continue to improve unreasonable regulations and overhaul systems in order to attract 700,000 foreign patients annually by 2027.”
Reporter Kim Jeong-hyun photo provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare
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2024-04-29 10:52:51