The Korean Academy of Family Medicine (KAFM) strongly supported and committed to cooperating with the government’s initiative to introduce a “Korean-style primary care physician system.”
However, the academy also highlighted the need for complementary measures, such as strengthening financial support and cultivating high-quality primary care personnel, to ensure effective cooperation.
These points were outlined by the academy in its “Policy Recommendations for Community-Based Primary Care” released on Friday, reinforcing its stance.
Building on its policy recommendations, the KAFM expressed deep sympathy and active support for the “community-based primary care innovation pilot project” pushed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The academy said it recognizes this as an important effort to shift Korea’s healthcare system towards community-based primary care. This comes in response to changes in the healthcare environment, such as the entry into a super-aged society and the rise in chronic diseases.
The academy said, “This pilot project is expected to serve as a turning point, accelerating the transition to a primary care system centered on primary care physicians, which performs prevention, management, and coordination functions based on continuous relationships with patients, moving beyond fragmented care after disease onset.”
However, it emphasized that, for the policy direction to yield tangible results in practice and for the system to stabilize, meticulous institutional refinements informed by the medical field’s experience and expertise are necessary.
To achieve this, the KAFM prioritizes establishing a sophisticated payment and compensation system that reflects patient characteristics.
“To operate the primary care physician system stably, we must establish a rational, predictable compensation system. This system should allow medical staff to focus on patient management and care,” the academy said. “We must move beyond simple cost allocation. Instead, we should introduce a risk-adjusted payment structure that reflects clinical severity—such as patient health risk, presence of multiple conditions, and management difficulty—in stages.”
In addition, the academy stressed the need to strengthen regional infrastructure and financial support for multidisciplinary team-based care.
“To improve healthcare quality, multidisciplinary team-based care centered on primary care physicians must function effectively,” the KAFM said. “To achieve this, we must strengthen infrastructure such as regional primary care support centers and establish an administrative and financial support system reflecting personnel and operating costs.”
Finally, as an essential component of effective reform, it emphasized expanding the scope of the primary care physician system and cultivating high-quality primary care personnel.
“A phased expansion focused on middle-aged adults is practical, but we must ultimately adopt a life-cycle primary care system for all ages,” it said. “To do this, we must train high-quality specialists who can serve as primary care physicians.”
In conclusion, the academy said, “We firmly believe the Korean primary care physician system will become a core pillar supporting public health improvement and the sustainability of the healthcare system.”
It continued, “We will continue to provide professional advice and support in close cooperation with the government to ensure the system’s successful implementation in the field.”
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare reported the “Community-Based Primary Care Innovation Pilot Project Plan” to the Health Insurance Policy Deliberation Committee.
The ministry explained the rationale for the pilot project. Korea urgently needs a patient-centered primary care system to provide preventive and continuous health management, and to prevent severe chronic diseases from worsening. This need is driven by the super-aging population and rising chronic diseases.
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