The government's "Community Primary Care Innovation Pilot Program" is drawing criticism from both doctors and Korean medicine practitioners. While doctors worry the program could serve as a starting point for introducing a so-called "Korean-style family doctor system," Korean medicine practitioners have expressed strong anger over the exclusion of Korean medicine clinics.
The Korea Medical Association (KMA) said in a regular briefing on the 9th, "In Korea, where there is still no clear definition of a family doctor system or social consensus on it, if the pilot program is pushed forward in its current form, it will not strengthen primary care but rather disrupt the healthcare delivery system and negatively affect patient care."
This referred to the Ministry of Health and Welfare's (MOHW) plan, announced the previous day on the 8th, to publicly recruit medical institutions to participate in the Community Primary Care Innovation Pilot Program. The plan aims to create a "Korean-style primary care model" in which local residents receive comprehensive and continuous health management services—from disease treatment and prevention to health management and care—at neighborhood clinics they regularly use.
The KMA said, "When you look into the pilot program, it contains elements such as patient capitation and risk-based monthly fixed payments that restrict medical autonomy," expressing concern that "this is a model focused on controlling medical costs and suppressing patients' use of medical services, which in the long term could shrink patients' choices and reduce access to healthcare." In particular, there is strong opposition to including the "outflow rate" (the proportion of patients using other clinics) as a performance indicator for the pilot program. KMA spokesperson Kim Sung-keun said, "Patients have the right to receive care at appropriate medical institutions—neighborhood clinics, regional specialist clinics, general hospitals, and tertiary hospitals—depending on the characteristics and severity of their condition," and argued that "evaluating this as outflow does not conform to the basic principles of the healthcare delivery system."
The KMA also took issue with the design that allows clinics participating in the program to choose between an integrated fee system and a fee-for-service system for compensation for their medical services. Kim said, "The integrated fee system, which pays a monthly fixed amount based on patient risk, is a structure that induces medical institutions to provide care within a set compensation range, so the more active care and necessary tests and treatments they provide, the greater the burden on the institution." He pointed out, "It is highly likely to lead to underprovision of care by pressuring institutions to reduce necessary treatment, and by shrinking the provision of medical services patients need, it will lead to a decline in the quality of care and damage to trust between patients and doctors." He continued, "The government must not push forward this Community Primary Care Innovation Pilot Program unilaterally," urging that it "should again fully gather the opinions of the medical community, redesign the program in a reasonable direction, and conduct a complete review."
Meanwhile, among Korean medicine practitioners, anger is rising over the exclusion of Korean medicine clinics from the pilot program. The Association of Korean Medicine (AKOM) said in a statement that day, "We strongly condemn the government's conduct of excluding Korean medicine doctors and clinics, which are responsible for regional primary care that Western medicine doctors have neglected."
Citing statistics from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, AKOM said, "As of July 2026, the number of Korean medicine institutions participating in the primary care home visit pilot program is 4,869, about 2.3 times more than the 2,118 Western medicine institutions," and claimed that "patient satisfaction with Korean medicine institutions and intention to continue participating stand at 82.1% and 74.3%, respectively." AKOM's position is that even though Korean medicine practitioners are playing an active role in community home care and receiving high trust, it cannot accept the MOHW pushing forward a primary care innovation pilot program run solely by Western medicine doctors.
AKOM argued, "Labeling a Western-medicine-only model that excludes Korean medicine doctors as 'Korean-style,' and pouring enormous funds into Western medicine clinics alone, is a profession-biased outrage by the Western medicine cartel within the MOHW," and asserted that "we must create a model that provides the best primary care to the public in line with Korea's dual system of Korean and Western medicine."
