By Lee Hae-rin
More than 600,000 foreigners traveled to Korea last year for medical procedures, marking a record high in the history of the country’s medical tourism industry, the health ministry said Monday.
Korea received 605,768 patients of foreign nationalities, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. They were non-beneficiaries of the national health insurance who came to Korea from overseas for medical services.
The ministry has been stepping up efforts to boost the country’s medical tourism industry since May 2023, which apparently paid off with a 144.2 percent jump from the previous year’s 248,000 visitors.
Last year’s figure is 21.8 percent higher than the pre-pandemic peak of 497,000 visitors and a record high since Korea allowed medical institutions to attract foreign patients in 2009.
Patients representing a total of 198 nationalities…