의료법상 환자유인금지규정에 관한 연구

Abstract

The law of medicine prohibits patient solicitation to prevent taking unfair advantage from patients’ urgent situations. However, since medical practitioners’ medical practices are directed to patients, illegality of any and all types of patient solicitation would make the business operation of medical practice inoperable and also result in fundamental violation of freedom of occupation. Since advertisements of medical practices are permitted under certain conditions and solicitation of foreign patients are encouraged at the national level, there is a need for limited interpretation of the law on prohibition of patient solicitation to provide accurate information to domestic medical consumers, thus enabling them to make reasonable choices. Therefore, patient solicitation activities by medical practitioners or medical organizations should be permitted in general, but approprate means should be used to limit activities that causes disruption in the order of medical market, such as interfering with medical consumers’ reasonable choice-making, or excessive competition among medical organizations that transfers burden to medical consumers.