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National Health Insurance Service headquarters. / National Health Insurance Service

The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) is running a self-diagnosis system to support voluntary service inspections at long-term care facilities.

NHIS announced on the 21st that it will operate the "Long-Term Care Service Monitoring Self-Diagnosis" system on a continuous, year-round basis, once per month.

The system is a self-management program that helps long-term care facilities check key service monitoring items, such as staffing levels, on their own. It applies to facilities receiving long-term care benefit surcharges, which can conduct self-inspections once a month based on inspection items specific to their surcharge type.

Inspection items cover categories such as additional staffing, tailored services, and staffing surcharges for social workers at home visit care facilities, with each type comprising 15-17 inspection items. Participating facilities can check their inspection items through the long-term care facility business portal, complete a self-check using a "Yes/No" format, and submit their results.

Final inspection results are marked "adequate" if the share of "Yes" responses across inspection items is 60% or higher, and "inadequate" if below 60%. The program is designed to let participating facilities assess their service levels based on the results and independently improve any shortcomings identified.

As of June, 23,795 facilities were eligible for the long-term care service monitoring self-diagnosis program, of which 18,075 participated — a participation rate of 76%.

An NHIS official said, "We hope the long-term care service monitoring self-diagnosis system becomes a practical tool supporting facilities' voluntary inspection and improvement efforts," adding, "We hope active participation from many facilities leads to improved service quality."

The official added, "We plan to continue strengthening facilities' self-regulating capacity through ongoing service monitoring, and work to create an environment that delivers high-quality long-term care services that beneficiaries can genuinely feel the benefit of."

                                                                                                            Seo Byung-ju