Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service will begin evaluating the appropriateness of health insurance benefit for Celltrion's Covid treatment.

[Infostock Daily=Reporter Lee Ji-sun] When using Celltrion's COVID-19 treatment, the process of assessing whether it is worth spending health insurance funds will begin.

Usually, if a new drug fails to pass the procedure after it is developed, the patient will have to pay all the costs. Medical costs for COVID-19 is paid by taxes because patients do not pay anything.

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service announced on the 4th that it has begun the payment evaluation process for the first COVID-19 treatment in Korea.

On the 24th of last month, Celltrion applied to include this medicine in the health insurance category. Non-wage drugs that are not included in the health insurance category must be paid 100% of the cost by the patient. If included in the health insurance category, the patient burden will be reduced to about 20% (5% for cancer, etc.).

The Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service plans to speed up the assessment of wage adequacy in consideration of the crisis of infectious diseases. 

Reporter Lee Ji-sun stockmk2020@gmail.com