Highest growth in medical expenses for obstetrics and gynecology, but visits decreased
With the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, not a few changes are taking place in hospitals.
Overall, the number of visits to hospitals has decreased significantly. Especially for pediatric and Otorhinolaryngology, the visits and medical expenses have declined, and business challenges are becoming a reality.
On the other hand, as the medical expenses and the number of people visiting the psychiatric department have increased, corona depression (corona blue) is revealed in figures.
According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the total number of visits in medical clinics in the 3Q of last year was 404.38 million, down 12.9% from the same period last year.
By department, the number of visits to pediatrics dropped 44.9% during this period, nearly halving, and visits to otorhinolaryngology also decreased 29.7%.
General practitioner fell 10.9%, ophthalmology 8.8%, internal medicine 6.9%, obstetrics and gynecology 6.2%, orthopedics 6.0%, surgery 5.1%, anesthesiology 4.6%, and urology 1.8%.
Contrarily, psychiatric visits rose by 11.3%, the only double-digit increase, and dermatology also gained 1.6%.
Among the 12 major departments, only two, psychiatric and Dermatology increased YoY in visit days.
Nevertheless, overall medical expenses rose 1.2% to KRW 12.5573 trillion.
In particular, the medical expenses for psychiatric, which saw a significant increase in the number of visits, increased 19.0% this period.
Although visit days to obstetrics and gynecology decreased by more than 6%, the medical expense increased by 23.5%, the highest among 12 medical departments.
Urology also saw a slight decrease in visit days, but the medical expenses were up by 13.7%.
Along with psychiatric, the medical expenses of dermatology increased by 8.2%, ophthalmology 6.5%, surgery 5.2%, anesthesiology 5.0%, internal medicine 3.0%, and orthopedics 2.0%.
As the number of visit days to pediatrics decreased by nearly half, the medical expense also plunged nearly 40%.
Otorhinolaryngology’s medical expenses declined nearly 20% as the visit days dropped by nearly a third, and the medical expense for general practitioners slightly decreased
