Korea Times: Can a foreigner win a medical lawsuit?
Interesting article from 16 years ago with the same issues still present and relevant to current times.
Can anyone find out how this ended?
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20100629/koreatoday-can-a-foreigner-win-medical-lawsuit
Published Jun 29, 2010 5:09 pm KST
Updated Jun 29, 2010 5:09 pm KST
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff reporter
Chung Kyoung, 40, is facing a lawsuit by a Seoul-based dermatology clinic for posting complaints about the clinic's "dishonest practices" that he encountered over the past three years.
"Our legal advisor considers what you have done is defamation of our clinic and we'd like to settle the case in court," CleanUp Dermatology wrote in an e-mail to Chung.
What is odd is that Chung, an ethnic Korean from Chicago, has, in fact, repeatedly demanded that the dermatology take legal action against him and is looking forward to it.
In an interview with The Korea Times Saturday, Chung said he wants to be sued, rather than sue it because he is aware that his case against the clinic will be a long legal battle and that only the defendant is guaranteed to have a pro bono lawyer.
Chung is a former employee of accounting firm Arthur Andersen in the United States and has been working as a freelance auditor and process consultant in Seoul since 2001.
Hoping that the truth can be revealed in a court hearing, he plans to continue to post his complaints on the dermatologist's website until he receives "honest answers" from the clinic or it files a lawsuit.
As of last week, a total of 98 messages that he had posted on the dermatology's website since 2007 was deliberately deleted by CleanUp.
Patient's side of story
Chung claims that a doctor of CleanUp Dermatology coaxed him to spend several thousand dollars for ineffective laser treatment for his wrinkles and scars in January 2007, without suggesting more affordable or equally effective alternatives during the consultation.
Dissatisfied with the degree of improvement, he demanded why Dr. Min Heon-geun from its Yeongdeungpo branch prescribed the Affirm laser procedure for him, rather than a mirco-laser peel, which is a stronger laser that would have produced better results for his condition.
"Why did the head doctor at CleanUp decide to use the Affirm laser without giving me other options such as the micro laser peel when it is obvious that, overall, the micro laser peel would have been more effective than the Affirm laser?" he wrote on its website bulletin board.
Instead of receiving an answer, he noticed that the clinic would just delete his complaints or someone would add many postings the same day so that his latest posting would move quickly to page 2.
He suspects that many of the customer postings were written by the clinic, given that a customer's post usually stays on page 1 for several days, sometimes up to a few weeks before being moved to the second screen.
As Chung continued to post his questions, CleanUp changed its bulletin board late last year to allow only registered Internet users to post messages on it.
He has tried to create an account, but it has been to no avail because the clinic requires a resident registration number, while rejecting the alien registration number.
The bulletin is still off limits to foreigners, despite the fact that CleanUp is one of the five dermatologists that Seoul City has announced as its partner in marketing medical tourism and foreigners account for about 3 percent of its patients.
"If you do not provide me with my own user ID and password, I have no choice but to use my friend's ID and password to post on your bulletin because I still want an honest explanation as to why your clinic lied to me and deceived me, among other things," he wrote in one of the e-mails.
Chung claims that the clinic also made him pay for the treatment of a scar that its dermatologist caused under his right eye in a careless mistake and shortened the skin care procedure by more than half without any notification on the weekend.
He also says the clinic lied to him so that he was forced to purchase unnecessary products and refused to give him a refund.
Chung wants to raise awareness that foreign patients deserve fair treatment and should also be equally protected in Korea, which has emerged as one of the world's largest economies and a hot medical tourism destination.
"What happened to me at the clinic should not happen to Koreans, foreigners and medical tourists.I will do everything possible to make sure that this does not happen to any other people."
Reaching out for help
Chung tried to file his complaint about CleanUp to the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA), the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), the International Medical Communications Office (IMCO), a municipal office and many other related offices.
However, instead of receiving help, Chung got the run around, many of which have closed his case without properly looking into it or providing a language service.
The KCA provided counseling in English but refused to arbitrate the dispute unless he hired his own translator, which would cost more than $100 a day.
Though the consumer agency signed a memorandum of understanding with the tourism organization to better protect the rights of foreigners as consumers on March 23, it has yet to offer interpretation or translation services to foreigners.
He has sent e-mails explaining his situation to officials of the KTO, including its President Lee Charm, but none of them have yet to respond.
The KCA referred him to the IMCO, which is better known as a medical call center, but it could not offer help, saying that it handles only medical negligence cases, whereas his case is considered a business fraud.
He talked to MOHW officials, but they only ended up referring him back to the IMCO.
He posted three messages on MOHW's bulletin board, asking how to file a formal complaint to the ministry and ways for foreign patients to voice concerns about medical tourism since June 18.
However, the ministry, which pours multi-million dollars every year in attracting foreigners to local hospitals, has yet to reply to his question.
"Is it safe to assume that the Korean government cannot do anything nor take responsibility when/if a medical service provider decides to rip off foreigners?," he wrote on MOHW's bulletin board.
"Why should foreigners come to Korea and receive medical treatment when there is a possibility that foreigners can get ripped off from the medical service provider and the Korean government will not help out?"
The Gangnam District Office also prematurely closed his case after hardly making any efforts to hear his complaints.
Rampant overcharging of patients
Unfortunately, it appears that excessive treatment and overcharging of patients has been prevalent and is an open secret of the thriving medical industry.
Of the 43,958 claims of being overcharged that were filed at the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) in 2009, the state-run body ordered hospitals to refund in 18,639 cases.
In 2008, the HIRA demanded a refund for more than half of the 24,876 cases filed that year.
However, the majority of people, especially foreigners, are still unaware of the HIRA and what it can offer them.
Even if they find out about the HIRA and become suspicious of having received excessive or inappropriate treatment, the majority of foreigners, including Chung and medical tourists, cannot do much about it.
This is because those who are not a member of the NHIC are not entitled to seek help from the HIRA, including Chung who has been hesitant to subscribe to the national insurance plan as its subscription fee applies retroactively and he now would have to pay some $2,000 up front.
Of some 1.2 million foreigners and Korean expats residing in Korea, only 422,987 people, or roughly 30 percent, subscribed to the national insurance program last year. In short, the majority of foreigners remain unprotected from a hospitals' unfair billing.
Two-tier pricing
Chung has noticed that the Seoul National University Hospital has begun to charge him nearly three times compared to a few years ago, though only a slight improvement has been made in its international clinic, to be precise, renovation of its bathroom.
He thinks the fee is relatively lower and the service is good compared to that of the United States, but wonders whether such a sharp increase in fees can be justified.
According to a survey by The Korea Times in February, major hospitals charged foreigners without insurance 2.5 to 3 times more than the stated fees for locals.
Sadly, the government supports a dual pricing policy with the view that hospitals are entitled to charge more to cover additional expenditures spent exclusively to cater to the needs of foreigners such as the provision of interpretation and pick-up services.
To curb such a widespread practice of overcharging, the National Assembly revised the Medical Law in May last year so that hospitals must notify patients with a list of fees for medical treatments not covered by insurance through a booklet and on a website from February of this year.
Legislators did not mandate hospitals to publicize the list of fees subsidized by the National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) because the HIRA randomly reviews roughly two percent of them and impose penalties on hospitals for overbilling.
With the implementation of the legislation, anyone can readily compare medical fees of hospitals at a glance even without having to visit every hospital with at websites like https://www.doctorwiz.com and https://www.koreanmedi.com, which offer a comprehensive price comparison of medical treatments.
Observers say now it appears that an increasing number of complaints by foreigners for inflated bills will be inevitable.
A medical dispute is a much more complicated one and takes an average of two years to settle, four times longer than the average time required for other litigations.
Given that almost all of the cases are handled in the local court and foreigners have to shoulder the burden of hiring a lawyer and the expenses for translation and staying in Korea, they often have more to lose than gain in legal battles.
However, Chung, who has witnessed the clinic's continual denials for its wrongdoings, is determined to settle his case in court since the concerned government agencies show a lack of willingness to look into his case.
"It is a matter of principle. I plan to pursue my case no matter how long it may take and how frustrating it might become."
If he wins his case, he plans to donate the financial compensation he receives to an orphanage.