Data submitted to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee revealed that in 2024, health insurance treatment costs for foreigners totalled KRW1.97tn ($1.44bn), while benefits reached KRW1.47tn.
These figures mark sharp increases of 67.8% and 67.4%, respectively, compared to 2019, when treatment costs stood at KRW1.17tn and benefits at KRW880.6bn.
Health insurance treatment costs and benefits for foreigners have reached all-time highs. Notably, for expensive conditions such as cancer and rare diseases, per-capita medical spending for foreigners has surpassed that of Korean nationals.
As of August, this year, treatment costs for foreigners reached KRW1.3909tn, with benefits totalling KRW1.0457tn, suggesting that annual costs could surpass KRW1.5tn.
Data from HIRA shows that foreign patients incur higher per-capita medical expenses than Koreans for high-cost conditions such as cancer and rare or severe incurable diseases.
Last year, the average cost of cancer treatment was KRW 5.05m for Koreans compared with KRW 5.79m for foreign patients. For rare and severe incurable diseases, per-capita costs were KRW 6m for Koreans and KRW 6.12m for foreign patients.
As treatment costs for high-cost diseases among foreigners surpass those for Korean nationals, the share of total health insurance benefits allocated to foreigners continues to rise.
However, the HIRA noted that it is impossible to calculate medical costs by nationality, as it does not collect information on the nationality of foreign patients.