A blurred image of a hospital (123rf)
Under a new government policy, the government will provide incentives for the treatment of patients with acute mental illness, by expanding benefits to the patients along with financial compensation for the medical staff.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Health Insurance Service will now provide benefits for treatment of mental illnesses at specialized hospitals designated by the government. As part of the ongoing project, the government has been establishing medical facilities and the subsidy plans via the national health insurance program.
Acute mental illness refers to cases with a rapid proliferation of psychological symptoms, and diagnosed by specialists as having significant risk to hurt others or themselves. The specialized hospitals are to set up intensive care units in closed-off wards.
The NHIS will provide the hospitals with greater reimbursement of medical costs than it does for regular mental health treatment. The government said this was to compensate for the extensive use of medical resources and difficulty in treating these type of mental illnesses.
Patients can receive subsidized counseling up to twice a day under the new policy. The previous policy had the national health insurance cover only one counseling session per day.
The state health insurance program will also cover more counseling sessions for the families of those receiving intensive mental health care, expanding from the previous three sessions a week to seven a week.
The new criteria will go into effect on Sept. 22.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com