Health and Welfare Minister Jung Eun-kyeong said she will push to expand health insurance coverage for hair loss treatment in the second half of this year.
At a press conference marking the first anniversary of her appointment in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, on Tuesday, Jung said, "In the second half of this year, we will push to expand health insurance coverage for hair loss treatment after gathering public opinion." She added, "We have completed a working-level review of how much it will cost the health insurance finances." She continued, "Judging that opinion-gathering was necessary, we found many positive responses in a survey of 1,000 people conducted by the National Health Insurance Service. We plan to ask for the public's opinion through various public deliberation processes, including the first 'Everyone's Debate' to be held by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on the 4th of next month, and to review implementation measures reflecting this."
Applying health insurance to hair loss treatment was one of President Lee Jae-myung's campaign pledges during the presidential election. President Lee's judgment is that hair loss is not merely an appearance issue but a disease requiring treatment, given its significant impact on young people's health and daily lives, including depression, social avoidance, and lowered self-esteem. On the other hand, there is considerable counterargument over whether it is appropriate to spend funds on hair loss, which does not threaten life like cancer or rare diseases, at a time when health insurance finances for regional, essential, and public medical care are already insufficient.
In fact, concerns about health insurance finances were also raised that day. In response, Jung Kyung-sil, head of the Health and Welfare Ministry's Health and Medical Policy Office, said, "There is still room in the finances for now, but the point at which a health insurance deficit is expected is approaching." She added, "We are continuing efforts to strengthen health insurance coverage while also expanding finances, as well as work to streamline areas of excessive spending." The ministry is conducting health insurance spending restructuring along with relative value adjustments in the second half of this year.
Regarding the government's recent conversion of manual therapy to managed benefits, Jung said, "Since the Moon Jae-in administration, we have had a problem awareness about the situation in which non-covered treatments increased indiscriminately, raising the public's medical cost burden, and this is the result of long research and discussion." She said, "We will examine whether this kind of non-covered care control is effective across managed benefits as a whole." Managed benefits is a system under which a medical procedure that requires appropriate medical use management is designated as a preliminary health insurance item to provide benefits. The Health Insurance Policy Deliberation Committee recently limited manual therapy to twice a week and 15 times a year. For treatment costs, health insurance covers 5% and the patient covers 95%.
Regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI), Jung said, "The ministry's role is to build infrastructure, such as standardizing data for developing AI and creating utilization systems." She said, "There is much creative technology in Korea with global competitiveness, such as AI needed for primary care or public medical care connection systems and patient monitoring, so we plan to announce an AI master plan to support and institutionalize such development soon."
