South Korea’s personal medical spending tops 200 trillion won for the first time

South Korea’s personal medical spending surpassed 200 trillion won for the first time last year, as national health expenditure reached its highest level on record.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s National Health Accounts report put provisional total health spending at 224.9936 trillion won, up 3.8% from about 216.6 trillion won a year earlier. The figure represented 8.4% of the country’s gross domestic product.

Personal medical spending, which covers money spent at medical institutions and pharmacies, accounted for 208.3 trillion won, or 92.6% of the total. Collective health spending, including prevention, public health programs and health administration, came to 16.7 trillion won.

Outpatient treatment represented the largest category of personal spending at 72.6 trillion won, followed by inpatient care at 54.5 trillion won. Spending on medicines and other medical goods totaled 46.6 trillion won, while long-term care services accounted for 29.4 trillion won.

The report identified rapid population aging as a major reason for the rise in medical costs. Per-person national health spending reached 4.353 million won. Apart from a slight decline between 2022 and 2023, national health spending has set a new annual record every year since 1970. It first exceeded 100 trillion won in 2014 and passed 200 trillion won in 2022.