Your medical records in South Korea: the right, and what it costs

What the rule is

Article 21 of the Medical Service Act does two things in sequence, and the order is the point.

Paragraph (1) gives you the right. A patient may ask medical personnel, the head of a medical institution or its staff to let them inspect, or to issue copies of, all or part of the records concerning them. The clinic is not free to decline for its own convenience.

Paragraph (2) then shuts the door on everyone else. Records may not be shown or copied to any person who is not the patient.

Paragraph (3) reopens it for a defined list. The two entries that matter to a visitor are a family member within the specified degrees, and a representative the patient has designated. Both must come with the patient's written consent and documents proving the relationship or the authority, in the form the ministry's rules prescribe.

So the structure is: your records are yours, they are nobody else's, and the route by which someone else may collect them runs through a document you sign.

Who it applies to, and what it means on a trip

It applies to every medical institution in South Korea, which includes the single-doctor skin clinics most visitors actually attend.

What it means on a treatment trip is simple enough to put on a checklist. You can walk out holding your own record, and you do not need a reason. If you would rather a family member or an agency collect something later, the consent and the proof of authority have to exist, so sign them while you are still in the country. Requesting all of this from abroad, weeks later, in Korean, is the version of this that goes badly.

Records are kept in Korean. That is not a gap in the law, it is simply the working language, and it is why the next section matters more than most people expect.

What it costs, and the document worth asking for

Fees here are capped by a ministry notice issued under Article 45-3 of the Act. The notice sets ceilings rather than prices: a clinic chooses its own figure anywhere between zero and the cap.

For the items a visitor needs:

• Record copies. Up to 1,000 won per page for the first five pages, and up to 100 won per page from the sixth.
• Imaging. Up to 5,000 won on film, 10,000 won on CD, 20,000 won on DVD.
• General medical certificate. Up to 20,000 won.
• English-language general medical certificate. A separate listed item, also up to 20,000 won.
• Outpatient or treatment confirmation. Up to 3,000 won each.

That fourth line is the useful discovery. An English-language certificate is not a favour you are asking for, it is a defined item on a national fee schedule, which tells you clinics are expected to produce one. It is also the document a doctor at home can actually read, and it needs a doctor to write it, so it has to be requested before you fly rather than after.

The same notice requires a clinic to display its chosen fees where patients can see them, to publish them on its website if it has one, and to post any change 14 days before it takes effect.

How to check it yourself

Read Article 21 on the National Law Information Center, which shows the amendment history at the top of the page, so you can see which version you are reading and when it took effect. The Korea Legislation Research Institute publishes an English rendering of the whole Act, including Article 21-2 on sending records between institutions.

For fees, open the ministry notice itself. It runs to 30 items and the two record-copy lines are numbers 25 and 26. The notice carries a periodic review clause, so check that you are reading the current version before you rely on a figure.

At the clinic, the fee it actually charges should be posted in the building, and on its website if it has one.

What this does not tell you

It does not tell you what is in your records or how detailed they will be. The statute governs access, not content.

It does not give you an English record. It gives you an English certificate, which is a summary document a doctor writes, and those are different things.

It does not help your doctor at home interpret a Korean product name or a device setting. For that, ask the clinic to write down what was used, at what strength, and where, while you are still standing in front of them. Our page on what to arrange before you fly home covers the rest of that list.

The bottom line

Your records are yours by statute, the fee is capped by notice, and an English certificate is a listed item at 20,000 won rather than a special request.

The only part that requires foresight is timing. Every one of these documents is easy to obtain while you are in Seoul, and awkward to obtain once you are not.