From next month, older adults living in Seoul who have mobility difficulties and receive home visit medical care from a doctor will be able to have 80% of their copayment covered by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

On the 30th, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it will implement this “Home Visit Medical Care Copayment Support Program” from September for older adults eligible for the Integrated Care program. Home visit medical care is a service in which a doctor visits the home of a patient who has difficulty using medical institutions due to limited mobility and provides examinations, consultations, and prescriptions.

Those eligible for support are older adults under the Integrated Care program who require home visit medical care, and 80% of the statutory copayment will be covered up to 20 times per person per year. The annual support limit is KRW 158,000. For health insurance subscribers, KRW 31,600 out of the KRW 39,500 copayment per home visit will be subsidized. For bedridden patients with Long-term Care Insurance grades 1–2 and those eligible for care benefit payments, KRW 15,700 out of KRW 19,700 will be covered, while medical aid beneficiaries and near-poverty households will receive KRW 5,500 out of KRW 6,500.

There is no separate application procedure for the subsidy. Eligible persons only need to pay the remaining amount to the medical institution after deduction of the Seoul Metropolitan Government subsidy when they receive home visit care. Medical institutions will then claim the subsidy from the public health center. The Seoul Metropolitan Government explained, “Until now, some autonomous districts individually supported home visit medical care costs, resulting in differences in whether and how support was provided by region, but through this program, the same support standards have been applied across all of Seoul.”

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