• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.163-187
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• 2011

On March 11, 2011, the Korea National Assembly finally passed the bill on the Damage Relief on the Medical Malpractice and Mediation for Medical Dispute. One of the features of this Act is including "The Subrogation Payment System for Damage (abbreviated SPSD)". This System is that 'Korean Medical Dispute Mediation-Arbitration Board' pays the damages, instead of the health care provider, for the patient who isn't paid damages by the health care provider despite of the Mediation or ruling. The purpose of this study is to search the problems and make improvement on SPSD. This System was introduced extreamly to the patients in order to induce them to the mediation. However,there remains several problems. In this articles, I have examined thoroughly the legal issues on SPSD. There are legal issues about the methods and ratio of the financial burden. In this connection, wide discretionary authority has been granted to administrative agencies specifically. On this account, this System clearly contains elements of a violation against the Constitutional Law. Moreover, this System can be broadly applied to the case of court ruling or the Korea Consumer Agency's mediation. But these measures go against the aim of legislation that the medical dispute can be resolved through the mediation or arbitration by this Act. In the end, these problems must be revised through the additional discussion.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.91-122
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• 2014

For a variety of reasons, the number of medical disputes is continuously rising. Due to the intrinsic qualities of medical treatments, one would find it more apt to subject medical disputes to general conflict resolution procedures rather than to once-for-all decisions under legal suits. To address the increasing medical disputes with greater professionalism and efficiency, the Medical Disputes Mediation Act was enacted and a medical dispute mediation system put in place, while drawbacks have been blamed to both. The current mediation procedures require the respondent's agreement as a disclosure requirement. A reasonable improvement to this would be to amend the regulation of agreement supposition, or to enforce procedural participation only to public health facilities managed by the national or regional government. Furthermore, small claims cases of 20 million KRW or less in claim may be considered for conciliation-prepositive principle. The concentration on small claim medical disputes is a phenomenon that can be addressed by carrying out maximum authentication commissions or similar measures, one of the solutions by enhancing the public trust in the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency. The proper management of medical authentication teams is one way to address the existing problems in the authentication system. For this, the number of team members shall be increased under more flexible authentication procedures. All indemnity resources for medical accidents of force majeure must be borne by the Government, for it is the body principally responsible for social compensation. Placing this cost on the establisher of the subject medical facility holds the possibility of violating fundamental rights. While the costs for subrogation payment system for damages may be borne by the healthcare facility establisher, a deposit-based system must be created for cases in which the facility shuts down, without holding the responsibility for accident cause. Such change to a deposit-based system will evade the controversies of unconstitutionality, etc.