In present, the Korean statutes and administrative regulations related to the medical corporation allows only non-profit medical corporation. However, according to the Corporation Income Tax Law, the medical organizations are defined as for-profit entities.
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the current legal status of medical corporation and suggest its direction to the reform for better health care delivery system. In order to carry out this study, I first examined the corporate practice of medicine doctrine which has been a theoretical and historical ground for banning for-profit medical corporation. The prohibition against the corporate practice of medicine is a legal doctrine that prevents a corporate entity from employing physicians, owning physician practices or providing medical services. This doctrine grew out of efforts to protect against threats to physician autonomy posed by corporate involvement in health care system.
However, along with the proliferation of profit-seeking health care organization, many exceptions to the doctrine also signal an acceptance of the risks of commercial exploitation and divided loyalty and narrow the reach of the corporate practice ban, thus diminishing the force of these public policy bases for the continued existence of the corporate practice of medicine doctrine.
In this article, I presented the Professional corporation as a reforming alternative to the current non-profit medical corporation. The professional corporation is organized by those rendering personal services to the public of a type which requires a license. Because all members of a physician-owned professional corporation are required to possess a medical license, the risk of lay control and divided loyalty is not present.
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