Korea catches foreign currency earning foreign currency of 240 trillion won in medical tourism
The Korean government's move to become one of the top 10 medical tourism powers is accelerating.
This is due to an analysis that the global medical tourism market will expand to more than 240 trillion won by 2025.
Strategic measures to foster and utilize Korean medical tourism service products as new foreign currency earnings have become visible.
Typically, the number of excellent online visa issuance attraction institutions will be increased to 50 to strengthen the convenience of visa issuance.
Through this, foreign currency consumption is induced in Korea by extending access to inflow into Korea and the period of stay for foreigners.
Infrastructure creation under the theme of medical tourism will also be implemented.
The construction of wellness and bio-healthcare convergence clusters will begin in earnest, and the operational goal of linking the facilities with medical tourism products to lead to potential consumption of foreigners has also been set.
Attracting 700,000 foreigners in medical tourism, target year 2027
It will attract 700,000 foreign patients from medical tourism. The target year is 2027.
By implementing four tasks, including improving foreign immigration procedures, Korea has a strategic initiative to solidify its position as an Asian country for medical tourism.
This is included in the "Strategy to Boost Foreign Patient Attraction" announced on May 29.
The strategy to revitalize the attraction of foreign patients will be implemented in four major categories: ▲ improvement of immigration procedures ▲ easing regional medical departments ▲ strengthening competitiveness in the attraction industry ▲ raising global awareness of Korean medical care.
The number of foreign patients who entered Korea for medical purposes increased to 146,000 in 2021 and 248,000 in 2022. The strategy is to increase the number of foreign patients visiting Korea to 700,000 to increase foreign currency imports into Korea.
The reorganization of the medical system, such as the ongoing interinstitutional sharing system of patient transfer information and the 119 emergency field response smart system, can be said to be in the same context.
A medical system is being prepared to share patient status information from the emergency site to the hospital in real time, and to input the severity and treatment of the patient through the terminal and transmit it to the emergency medical institution.
The 119 emergency field response smart system will be completed by the end of this year and will be distributed nationwide.
Implementation of tasks in four major sectors of foreign medical tourism
The development of "medical-tourism-culture-industry" package products targeting foreigners visiting Korea has been weighed.
After COVID-19, the government declared this year and next year as the "Year of Visit to Korea" in order to preempt international tourism demand early.
The plan is to combine Korea's medical, tourism, culture, and industry into one service product to earn both international tourism demand and foreign currency.
- Organization of medical subjects by country to ease regional medical bias
The task of diversifying the medical tourism area, which has been focused on the existing beauty and plastic surgery fields, will be preceded by sharing information on the supply and demand of medical services with overseas patient attraction organizations and establishing cooperative relationships.
Along with oriental medicine, medical service products for foreign patients in the fields of severe and complex diseases will be promoted.
In addition, customized strategies for each country will be established considering factors such as major infectious diseases and preferences for Korean medical services.
In order to increase the effective treatment and satisfaction of foreign patients visiting Korea, ICT-based pre-consultation and follow-up support projects will be expanded, and non-face-to-face treatment for foreign patients will be institutionalized by revising the Act on Medical Overseas Expansion and Foreign Patient Attraction.
Considering the existence of immediate families and the urgency of foreign patient conditions, the scope of guardians and guardians will be expanded from spouses and immediate families to siblings.
The requirements for submission of financial capability certification documents of partner companies will be exempted.
- Improvement of medical tourism visa entry and exit procedures
The immigration process for foreign patients will be improved by expanding excellent medical tourism attraction institutions and easing visa restrictions.
In order to enhance the convenience of visa issuance, the Ministry of Justice's designation of excellent hosting institutions will be expanded from 27 to more than 50 where patients can receive visas online without visiting overseas diplomatic missions.
If applications are made by the Ministry of Health and Welfare's certified attraction institutions (KAHF, 7 places) and senior general hospitals (45 places), they will be designated as excellent attraction institutions without a separate review.
The KAHF will be activated by simplifying the procedure so that foreign patients can also be evaluated for medical institutions that attract foreign patients when evaluating hospital-level medical institutions.
- Strengthening the competitiveness of institutions that attract foreign patients
A regional cooperation system under the theme of medical tourism will also be established.
This year, wellness and medical tourism convergence clusters will be established in Incheon, Daegu, Gyeongbuk, Busan, Gangwon, Jeonbuk, and Chungbuk.
The local government will develop a regional model to attract foreign patients and establish a business plan to strengthen its capacity.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare will provide 1 billion won to develop a unique attraction model in consideration of local medical, tourism and industrial infrastructure.
Following the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will invest 3 billion won in discovering tourism resources that combine treatment, beauty, prevention, medical and recovery, and healing (wellness). It aims to create global wellness and tourist destinations through infrastructure development and effective marketing.
- Global promotion of Korean medical services
Strategies to raise international awareness of Korean medical care will also be promoted.
It will form a regular consultative body with overseas diplomatic missions and the Korean Cultural Center to promote public-private cooperation projects, and actively promote international events such as Medical Korea International Conferences and online platforms.
Promoting foreign medical tourism will be carried out through major domestic and foreign events such as the Korea Medical Tourism Exhibition and participation in international fairs.
In addition, various promotional contents related to "K-Culture" are scheduled to be developed and distributed. Meanwhile, humanitarian aid is also provided.
The sharing medical project, which invites patients from neighboring countries to treat them free of charge, is included in the revitalization strategy to attract foreign patients.
It will also expand medical training for foreign medical personnel to spread excellent Korean medical technology and secure competitiveness in medical services by informing foreign patients of pre-consultation and follow-up management systems.
