Healthcare fraud by coverless foreigners hits $26.6 million over 5 years

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By Lee Kyung-min

Foreign nationals who do not qualify for Korea's National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) have exploited the state-run healthcare system here over the past five years to the tune of 31.6 billion won ($26.6 million), mostly by using borrowed or stolen healthcare certificates, United Future Party Rep. Kang Ki-youn said Tuesday.

The continuing problem of fraud adds to long-standing criticism that the government should strengthen relevant rules to more strictly prohibit unqualified foreign nationals from accessing medical service subsidies.

Data submitted by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) to Kang who sits on the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee showed that the cost of treating uninsured foreign patients between June 2015 and June 2020 totaled 31.6 billion won. In addition the cost more than doubled on an annual basis from 3.6 billion won in 2015 to 7.4 billion won in 2019.

The government was only able to recover about half, or 16.1 billion won, of this.

The 31.6 billion won was part of the 3.4 trillion won cost of medical services delivered to both insured and uninsured foreign nationals over the five-year period. These patients were comprised of over 71 percent Chinese (2.41 trillion won), followed by Vietnamese (215.3 billion won), Taiwanese (77 billion won), Uzbekistani (71.9 billion won), Canadian (53.5 billion won), Filipinos (53.2 billion won) and Japanese (52.3 billion won).

The figures brought renewed criticism of what is often referred to as “medical shopping” by foreign nationals seeking medical services at much lower prices compared to their home countries while on short-term stays.

The government revised a law in December 2018 to make it mandatory for foreign nationals to wait for six months after arriving in the country before being able to subscribe to the state-run healthcare system; up from the previous three months.

This was in response to complaints that foreigners not employed by Korean companies were able to subscribe to the NHIS with a monthly premium of 110,000 won ($92.90).

The premium is much lower than that paid by foreign nationals and Koreans employed by Korean firms, whose mandatory subscription is deducted alongside taxes from their monthly paycheck.

Rep. Kang said the period should be further increased to one year, a move he said will ensure more equitable shouldering of monthly premiums.

“It is necessary for these people to pay the due amount to use the high-quality healthcare services offered in Korea. The relevant authorities should strengthen identity verification to prevent them from exploiting lax oversight. Real-time information sharing between the immigration and law enforcement authorities is also needed to promptly detect any suspected attempts to abuse the system,” Kang added.