Last year, the disease with the highest number of patients hospitalized under the health insurance was found to be "age-related cataracts." Cataracts are eye diseases that make objects appear blurred, as if seen through fog, due to aging or damage to the lens inside the eye.
On the 8th, according to the 2024 annual statistics on frequent diseases from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA), 337,270 patients were hospitalized for cataracts last year. This figure represents a 5.4% increase from the previous year.
Following age-related cataracts, "pneumonia due to unspecified pathogen" (308,287 patients), "infectious and unspecified origin gastroenteritis and colitis" (244,125 patients), and "other intervertebral disc disorders" (220,212 patients) ranked second to fourth among the frequently hospitalized diseases.
Due to low birth rates and an aging trend, the diseases causing hospitalization have also changed. Ten years ago, in 2014, the medical condition designated for newborns, "survival birth by birth location," had 373,597 cases, making it the most frequent hospitalization condition. That year, the number of hospitalized patients for age-related cataracts was 251,008, ranking third.
Last year, the condition "survival birth by birth location" ranked fifth, with 207,398 cases. The number of births rapidly declined from about 430,000 in 2014 to around 240,000 last year, while the elderly population has quickly increased, leading to changes in the rankings of causes for hospitalization.
The disease that incurred the highest health insurance medical expenses due to hospitalization last year was Alzheimer's disease, costing 1.8694 trillion won. Cerebral infarction, pneumonia due to unspecified pathogen, and knee osteoarthritis followed.
In the outpatient case, patients visiting for "gingivitis and periodontal disease" amounted to 19.59 million last year, ranking first for the second consecutive year. Periodontal disease was also first in total outpatient medical expenses. This was followed by "acute bronchitis" (17.604128 million), "vasomotor and allergic rhinitis" (7.40701 million), and "essential hypertension" (7.329913 million).