Latest: every figure dated and sourced
-
Sending a Patient to a Korean Clinic for Money Is a Crime. Foreign Patients Are the Only Exception.
Korea’s Medical Service Act makes paid patient referral a criminal offence. Foreign patients not enrolled in national health insurance are the single carve-out, and it runs through a government register.
-
Ask to See the Box. Korean Law Lists Eight Things That Must Be Printed on It.
Note №35WHAT TO CHECK VERIFIED2026-08-24 PRIMARY SOURCES5 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE Some patients ask the clinic to open the product box in front of them. We cannot tell you how common that is and we are not going to pretend otherwise — but…
-
Korea Requires a Camera in the Operating Room. Asking It to Record Is a Separate Right — and a Form.
Note №34PATIENT RIGHTS VERIFIED2026-08-21 PRIMARY SOURCES4 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE If you are put under general anaesthesia in a Korean medical institution, the operating room is required by law to have a closed-circuit camera in it — and if you ask, in writing,…
-
Korea Exempts Medical Care From VAT. Then It Names the Procedures That Lose the Exemption.
Note №33TAX VERIFIED2026-08-21 PRIMARY SOURCES3 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE Medical treatment in Korea is exempt from value-added tax. Cosmetic treatment is not — and the exemption is not removed by a general principle but by a list. We read that list in the…
-
A Korean Lifting Price Is Quoted by the Shot. What One Shot Buys Depends on the Machine.
Note №32PRICE INTELLIGENCE VERIFIED2026-08-19 PRIMARY SOURCES5 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE Korean clinics price energy-device treatments in shots, lines, cc, Units and cartridges — not in treatments. We read the manufacturers’ own manuals on 19 August 2026. A Thermage treatment tip is specified for…
-
Korea’s Radiofrequency Lifting Devices Are FDA-Cleared. What They Were Cleared For Is Stopping Bleeding.
Note №31REGULATORY RECORD VERIFIED2026-08-19 PRIMARY SOURCES7 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE Four Korean RF devices sold as skin tightening carry United States clearances. Read the cleared sentence and it says electrocoagulation and hemostasis — the surgical control of bleeding. Here is the exact wording…
-
Why Do Six in Ten Foreign Patients in Korea Go to Dermatology? What the Numbers Do — and Don’t — Explain.
Note №30PATIENT STATISTICS VERIFIED2026-08-18 PRIMARY SOURCES2 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE Of the 2.01 million foreign patients Korea treated last year, 62.9% went to dermatology. Not plastic surgery — the specialty Korea is famous for — which took 11.2%. Nearly six skin patients for…
-
The Device Name on Your Korean Treatment Menu May Not Exist Outside Korea.
Note №29REGULATORY RECORD VERIFIED2026-08-18 PRIMARY SOURCES2 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE You had HIFU lifting in Seoul. Back home, you tell your dermatologist you had “Shurink.” They have never heard of it — and neither has any regulator in their country. That is not…
-
Korea Treated 2 Million Foreign Patients Last Year. Six in Ten Went to a Dermatologist.
Note №28PATIENT STATISTICS VERIFIED2026-08-18 PRIMARY SOURCES3 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE If you are reading this site because you are considering a skin treatment in Korea, here is the single most contextualising number we can offer: last year, 2.01 million foreign patients were treated…
-
Olive Young’s Foreign Sales Went From 2% to 25% in Three Years.
Note №27RETAIL DATA VERIFIED2026-08-18 PRIMARY SOURCES2 CLINICS NAMED0 SPONSORSHIPNONE If you have stood in an Olive Young in Myeong-dong recently and wondered why half the store seems to be visitors with suitcases, the company’s own numbers say you were not imagining it.…