2.4.1 Payer perspective

The payer perspective focuses on the costs of illnesses that are paid by insurers and not patients. In South Korea, these costs are the costs covered by the NHI or the healthcare costs confirmed by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA). These covered costs can be either narrowly construed as only the amounts paid by the insurer or more broadly construed as including the amounts of copayments made by patients as well. Taking the broad meaning would thus require the estimation of the healthcare costs confirmed by the HIRA, which encompass both the costs paid by the insurer and the copayments made by patients.
