Mapo-gu, Seoul National Health Insurance Corporation Mapo Governor. News 1
In the future, a special calculation will be applied to patients with severe atopy who have severe symptoms and do not heal well, greatly reducing the burden of medical expenses.
Health Insurance Corporation applies additional calculation exceptions to 68 rare and severe incurable diseases
The National Health Insurance Corporation (Geonbo Corporation) announced on the 7th that it has added 68 diseases such as conical cornea and anencephalocephalus as rare diseases subject to special calculations since the 1st. The calculation special case is a system that relieves the burden of medical expenses by lowering the self-pay rate for severely ill patients with high medical expenses or patients with rare and severe intractable diseases.
When the calculation special case is applied, the rate of self-pay for medical treatment is reduced from 20% for existing hospitalizations and 30-60% for outpatients, to 10% for both inpatients and outpatients. The Health Insurance Corporation said, “With this system improvement, the number of rare diseases that are subject to calculation special cases has increased from 1014 to 1086,” and said, “About 6,400 patients are able to benefit from additional medical expenses.”
Atopic dermatitis is a chronic recurrent dermatitis in which the skin becomes thicker and harder with itchy symptoms. There are also mild cases, but many patients suffer from severe cases that spread widely and do not heal well.
Nevertheless, atopic dermatitis has been classified as one disease code regardless of its severity, so severe and mild patients have been treated like the same disease. Then, in July of last year, a severe atopic dermatitis disease code was prepared, and as it was implemented from this month, it was included in the calculation of special cases. The cost of the treatment (Dupigent Freefield), which had to pay about 5 million to 12 million won for 27 doses a year, is expected to decrease to about 2 million won per year. Dupixent is the only biological treatment for patients with severe atopic dermatitis, but there were many patients who could not be treated because the drug was too expensive.
The Health Insurance Corporation said, “We will continue to expand the application of special calculations for rare diseases that are newly diagnosed, and increase access to medical care so that people with severe intractable diseases can receive appropriate treatment, which has a large social and economic burden.”
Reporter Woorim Lee [email protected]