What this hereditary-disease genetic test budget calculator does
A clinical genetic testing plan may extend beyond one test for the index person.
A clinician may first propose a single-gene test, multigene panel, exome, genome, or another defined analysis and then discuss targeted confirmation tests for adult family members, later reanalysis, or recollection.
Counseling, specimen collection, shipping, transport, accommodation, companion care, and time away from work can make the household cash need larger than the first laboratory price.
This South Korea calculator transcribes a testing sequence already proposed in clinical care and actual provider quotes.
It separates a minimum confirmed budget from an upper budget in which every conditional family test, reanalysis, and recollection event occurs.
It does not select a test, estimate the probability of a hereditary condition, interpret a result, decide who should be informed, adjudicate Korean National Health Insurance, predict a private insurance payment, or determine parentage.
Privacy rule before you start
Do not enter a name, relationship, condition, variant, national identification number, contact detail, or test result.
Family rows are anonymous numbers from Family member 1 through Family member 8, and calculator state is not written to a server, database, cookie, or browser storage.
Refreshing the page clears the entries.
Quotes and confirmations to collect first
Start with the clinician’s order and an itemized provider or laboratory quote, not a national-average search result.
Test category, analytical scope, specimen, clinical purpose, reporting, counseling, shipping, and reanalysis terms can differ even when two services use a similar public name.
Align these inclusions before reading any price difference or family total.
Index-person checklist
- Exact ordered test name and analytical scope.
- Specimen type, collection site, and shipping route.
- Whether counseling, collection, shipping, reporting, and follow-up are separate.
- Covered, full-patient-payment, non-covered, or mixed status and the actual patient amount.
- Only reimbursement or support already confirmed for this stage.
Family-testing checklist
- The separate confirmation test proposed after the index-person pathway.
- Each family member’s provider, collection, shipping, and counseling quote.
- Individual explanation and written consent for each person being tested.
- Whether testing is conditional or the test and timing are confirmed.
- Provider-stated recollection or reanalysis conditions, timing, and price.
How to enter the stages
- Enter the index-person stage.
The test category is a scope label only and never sets a price or recommends one method over another.
Add the number of tests, actual patient amount per test, counseling, specimen collection, shipping, other direct cost, and a stage-specific confirmed offset.
- Add only family tests that have already been proposed.
Keep each row anonymous and enter its test, collection, shipping, other direct cost, confirmed offset, and planned month.
Select conditional when the index result or another clinical event still controls whether it happens, and confirmed only when the test and timing are actually set.
- Enter shared family counseling once.
It enters the minimum budget when at least one family row is confirmed and enters only the upper budget when all family rows remain conditional.
The calculator does not multiply shared counseling by family count.
- Separate reanalysis from recollection.
A not-planned stage is excluded even if a price remains in the field, a conditional stage appears only in the upper budget, and a confirmed stage appears in both budgets.
Public information is never used to decide whether either event is clinically appropriate.
- Add household costs outside the medical bill.
Transport, accommodation, companion or replacement care, time off work, and other household expenses belong in the cash plan.
No Korean benefit or insurance payment is automatically applied to those items.
Formulas and the meaning of the two budgets
Index gross cost = test count × actual patient amount per test + counseling + collection + shipping + other direct cost.
One family row gross cost = family confirmation test + collection + shipping + other direct cost.
Reanalysis gross cost = count × price per reanalysis + counseling + other direct cost.
Stage net direct cost = stage gross cost − min(confirmed offset, stage gross cost).
Minimum confirmed budget
This includes the index-person stage, confirmed family rows, shared counseling when at least one family row is confirmed, confirmed reanalysis or recollection, and all entered household costs.
It is the cash requirement for stages currently marked confirmed.
Budget including conditional stages
This adds every conditional family test, reanalysis event, and recollection reserve to the minimum pathway.
It is an upper scenario in which all entered conditional events occur, not a probability-weighted expected cost.
A confirmed offset is capped at the direct cost of its own stage so the result cannot become negative.
Do not enter a speculative percentage based only on policy generation, diagnosis, or an assumed Korean benefit category.
Use a KRW amount confirmed for that specific test event by the provider, NHIS, a support program, or the insurer.
Worked example: one index person and two anonymous family rows
Assume one index-person test at KRW 1,200,000, counseling at KRW 120,000, collection at KRW 30,000, shipping at KRW 20,000, and other direct cost at KRW 30,000.
The index gross cost is KRW 1,400,000, and a confirmed KRW 300,000 offset produces a net direct cost of KRW 1,100,000.
Worked South Korean genetic testing and family testing budget| Stage | Status | Gross cost | Confirmed offset | Net cost |
|---|
| Index-person test | Confirmed | KRW 1,400,000 | KRW 300,000 | KRW 1,100,000 |
| Family member 1 | Confirmed | KRW 280,000 | KRW 50,000 | KRW 230,000 |
| Family member 2 | Conditional | KRW 300,000 | KRW 0 | KRW 300,000 |
| Shared family counseling | Family stage | KRW 100,000 | KRW 0 | KRW 100,000 |
| Reanalysis | Conditional | KRW 250,000 | KRW 0 | KRW 250,000 |
| Recollection | Conditional | KRW 80,000 | KRW 0 | KRW 80,000 |
| Transport, care, and income loss | Household | KRW 300,000 | KRW 0 | KRW 300,000 |
The minimum confirmed budget is KRW 1,730,000: KRW 1,100,000 for the index person, KRW 230,000 for confirmed Family member 1, KRW 100,000 for shared counseling, and KRW 300,000 in household costs.
Adding conditional Family member 2 at KRW 300,000, reanalysis at KRW 250,000, and recollection at KRW 80,000 produces an upper budget of KRW 2,360,000 and a conditional difference of KRW 630,000.
The upper monthly plan is KRW 1,400,000 in month 1, KRW 630,000 in month 3, KRW 80,000 in month 4, and KRW 250,000 in month 18, so the first month is the peak cash month.
South Korean institution and consent boundaries
The current Bioethics and Safety Act was verified through the National Law Information OPEN API on August 23, 2026 as law ID 009628, MST 276665, effective October 1, 2025.
Article 49 requires a person conducting genetic tests to meet purpose-specific facility and staffing requirements and report the institution, while Article 50 limits misleading tests and disease-related testing by non-medical institutions.
A checkbox in this calculator is only a prompt to verify the actual institution or medical referral route; it is not a legal determination that a report was accepted or a service is permitted.
A family count never substitutes for each person’s consent
Article 51 requires written consent before specimen collection after explaining the test purpose, specimen management, withdrawal, rights, privacy protection, method, and expected meaning.
Each adult family member must receive the explanation and make an individual decision; one user adding three anonymous rows does not create consent for three people.
The calculator does not decide capacity, representative consent, or a statutory exception.
Article 52 addresses retention of consent forms, results, and specimen-provision records and access by the tested person or a legal representative.
The current Enforcement Rule was verified as ID 009838, MST 271595, effective December 3, 2025; Article 46 connects institution reporting to purpose-specific test items, service plans, and Annex 5 facility and staffing evidence.
This budgeting page deliberately receives no result, report, variant, condition, or identifying record.
Why Korean coverage and insurance are not inferred
Scope varies
Analytical scope, specimen, purpose, prior result, and included counseling can differ even under a similar service name.
The tool has no national-average default.
Eligibility varies
Korean NHI, special-case registration, and full-patient-payment treatment can depend on records and current criteria.
Enter the actual patient amount calculated by the billing office.
Offsets vary
Private policies and public or charitable support programs have different terms.
Subtract only a KRW amount confirmed for the specific stage.
HIRA’s non-covered medical price service can help identify providers and disclosed items, but it does not guarantee that every genetic test or final bill has the same scope.
NHIS states that non-covered and full-patient-payment expenses can be excluded from the annual out-of-pocket ceiling, so this calculator never treats every non-covered genetic test as refundable under the ceiling.
Special-case status also requires confirmation that the registration and the specific covered service apply to the person’s care.
Practical planning scenarios
- Family confirmation after an index panel: keep the index test confirmed and family rows conditional until the clinical pathway actually reaches family testing.
- Family members living in different regions: enter collection, shipping, other cost, and timing separately while entering shared counseling only once.
- A provider describes possible later reanalysis: use only the provider-stated price and month, and keep it conditional unless the event is truly scheduled.
- An insurer or support program responds: enter the confirmed KRW amount for that stage instead of deriving a percentage from a product generation or diagnosis.
- Travel and time away from work are material: keep these household expenses separate from the medical quote so the peak cash month reflects the family’s real cash flow.
Frequently asked questions
Can this calculator tell me which genetic test to take?
No.
Test selection, clinical need, and sequencing belong in qualified medical and genetic counseling; the tool only totals a plan already proposed.
Is a family confirmation test always cheaper than the index test?
Not necessarily.
Purpose, scope, specimen, provider, and included services differ, so use the actual quote for each anonymous family row.
Does the upper budget use a genetic probability or positive-test rate?
No.
It assumes every entered conditional family test, reanalysis, and recollection event occurs and is therefore an upper scenario rather than an expected value.
Can one family representative check consent for everyone?
No.
Each tested person must receive the applicable explanation and make an individual decision, so consent confirmation is recorded separately for every anonymous family row.
Can I use this for a parentage test?
No.
Private testing and court-ordered expert evidence involve separate identity, specimen, consent, procedure, and legal-effect boundaries outside this calculator.
Are my entries saved?
The calculator uses the current page’s memory and does not persist the entries.
Still, protect sensitive information by never entering a name, relationship, condition, variant, or result in the first place.
Official South Korean sources and verification date
The sources below were checked on August 23, 2026.
Laws, institution-reporting rules, reimbursement criteria, and public price fields can change, so reconfirm the current position with the clinician, laboratory, provider billing office, NHIS, and insurer before specimen collection or payment.
The Bioethics and Safety Act was verified as ID 009628, MST 276665, effective October 1, 2025, including Articles 49 through 52.
Its Enforcement Rule was verified as ID 009838, MST 271595, effective December 3, 2025, including Article 46.
There is no statutory genetic-test price or universal Korean copay in this formula; every price starts at KRW 0 and must be replaced by a confirmed quote.
- Bioethics and Safety Act: institution, test restriction, consent, and record boundaries.
- Enforcement Rule of the Bioethics and Safety Act: Article 46 and the Annex 5 reporting framework.
- HIRA non-covered medical price information: a starting point for provider and item research.
- HIRA medical-fee confirmation service: a route to ask whether a patient charge should have been covered.
- NHIS annual out-of-pocket ceiling: exclusions for non-covered and full-patient-payment expenses.
Next step: take an anonymous budget and a question list to counseling
First confirm the index-person test name, scope, specimen, inclusions, and actual patient amount.
Add only family members for whom testing has already been proposed, keep every row anonymous, and verify each person’s separate quote and consent process before marking a stage confirmed.
Use the minimum budget, conditional difference, and peak month to prepare cash and questions without turning a budget tool into a medical or genetic interpretation.