Recent Issues related to the Medical Certificate and Prescriptions

진단서, 처방전과 관련된 최근의 쟁점

The Issuance of false medical certificates on Criminal Law or the Medical Service Act are frequently applied to the insurance fraud cases related with the medical certificate, prescriptions. The meaning of medical certificate is not defined on the crime of Issuance of false medical certificates, but considering the rule of Paragraph 1 of Article 17 of the Medical Service Act, which punishes drawing up the medical certificate by anyone except the doctor who has directly examined, and the principle of legality, the medical certificate applied with the crime of Issuance of false medical certificates should (1) include the judgment after current medical ex-amination, (2) be written for the purpose of verifying the health status and (3) have a style that can be recognizable as medical document usually written by doctors. In addition, since there have been many argues on the range of application of the Paragraph 1 of Article 17 of the Medical Service Act, which generally regulates various kinds of documents such as medical certificates, prescriptions and others, which have different purpose and characters, the range of application of the clause above is needed to be interpreted strictly.