As more and more foreigners started visiting South Korea for their healthcare needs, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) set up Medical Korea in 2009 to cater to the growing number of medical tourists. Since then, about 2.76 million foreign patients from 198 nations have visited the country until 2019, drawn by its outstanding medical technology, cutting-edge treatments, highly qualified practitioners and cost efficiency.
In 2020, Medical Korea was rebranded to reflect its increasing popularity as the place where people from around the world came to in order to get back to their normal life.
To ensure high quality and safety of medical services, South Korea has put in place a system of registration and compliance for hospitals serving foreign patients. It has implemented an accreditation programme for these hospitals too, which evaluates the standard of medical as well as non-medical services. Since 2016, all the registered hospitals have also been required to subscribe to medical malpractice liability insurance. The country attaches utmost importance to transparency and metes out fines and jail terms for illegal brokers.
Thanks to these measures that guarantee high standards of patient-centric care, South Korea has bagged many accolades including the Health and Medical Tourism Destination of the Year from International Medical Travel Journal for 2018 and 2019. At the 2018 World Medical Tourism Congress, Medical Korea was recognised for its innovations in healthcare.
