Table 1.

The Reimbursement and Pricing Categories for Medical Technologies in Japan and South Korea ^{(41), (42)}.

Category		South Korea	Japan
Coverage	Reimbursed	Comparing the technologies with those already listed and placed in the same “functional category,” which has similarity in material, feature, size, etc.	B1 category: placed in the existing functional classification
			B2 category: placed in the existing functional classification with definition change
			B3 category: placed in the existing category with improvement premium with conditional period
		If the new technology is considered superior to the listed technologies, “Value Appraisal Standard” Innovation Track and Technology Improvement Track are applied for premium pricing and a new functional category is created	C1 category: premium pricing with new functional category creation
			C2 category: new functional category with new procedure code or only new procedure code
			R category: evaluation of remanufactured technologies (reprocessed technologies with new functional category)
	Funded under the procedure (technical) fee (integrated fee schedule of hospital and physician fees)	Low-cost disposable and reusable instruments are paid under procedure fees	A1 category: placed in the existing technical fees that are not linked to the specific procedure fee codes
			A2 category: placed in the existing technical fees that are linked to the specific procedure fee code
			A3 category: placed in the existing procedure fees, but change the condition of the fees
Noncoverage		Cosmetic, not cost-effective or not clinically essential technologies	F category: Not suitable for reimbursement coverage