Recovery Rate for Illegal "Manager Hospitals" and Borrowed-License Pharmacies Stagnates at 14% Amid Widespread Uncollected Funds

The recovery rate for ill-gotten gains from illegally established institutions, such as manager-operated hospitals and borrowed-license pharmacies, has stood at only around 14% over the past five years or so.

According to data submitted by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) to the National Assembly Budget Office (NABO), the total amount of unjust gains ordered for recovery from illegally established institutions from 2021 to June of this year reached 655 billion won (339.2 billion won from medical institutions and 315.8 billion won from pharmacies).

During the same period, the amount collected stood at 92.5 billion won, resulting in a recovery rate of just 14.1%.

Looking at the institutions individually, the amount ordered for recovery from illegally established medical institutions surged by 411.4% from 21.8 billion won to 111.7 billion won last year.

However, the collection rate for the same period plummeted from 47.7% to 13.74%.

This year as well, out of 43 billion won ordered for recovery up to the first half, only 6.82 billion won was collected, keeping the recovery rate at a mere 15.9%.

In the case of borrowed-license pharmacies, about 67% of the total amount ordered for recovery during this period—211.4 billion won—was concentrated in 2022 and 2023, but the recovery rates for those years were a meager 2.8% and 5.7%, respectively.

This indicates that massive illegal profits generated by a small number of large-scale borrowed-license pharmacies have practically gone unrecovered.

Regarding the low recovery rate of unjust gains from illegally established institutions, the NHIS explained, "Over 70% of the defaulters have no property, and assets are concealed or disposed of while investigation periods drag on, making it difficult to secure claims."

In response, the National Assembly Budget Office emphasized, "As securing claims becomes difficult due to the concealment and disposal of assets, measures to secure claims in the initial stages of detection must be strengthened."

It added, "Improvements should be made so that uncollected rates and total uncollected amounts are reflected in performance indicators for recovery," and "Procedures for recovery decisions and disposition management must also be reviewed to prevent financial burdens such as interest payments arising from retroactive cancellations or modifications of recovery dispositions based on the results of criminal procedures."
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.