Analysis of Utilization and Expenses of Medical Care Services in a Designated Rural Areas

일부 농촌지역주민의 의료이용량 및 진료비분석

The medical insurance system has been adopted in rural areas in 1988. Since then, the utilization of medical care services has increased rapidly in rural areas. According to the various study on medical care utilization, the people in rural areas used more curative care services than urban areas. The purpose of this study was to analyze the utilization and expenses of medical care services in designated rural areas : Choonseong Gun, Kangwon Province ; and Soonchang Gun, Cheonbuk province in Korea. Medical care utilization of medical care beneficiaries showed slightly increase, while there was a decrease of 18% and more for the medicaid. Regarding selection of medical care institutions, medical care beneficiaries used more hospitals and clinics than health center networks, but the health center networks was used more by the medicaid. However, the hospitalized Soonchang health center was able to provide more curative care to the people than the other two health centers. More than 50% of the patients treated by hospitalized health center were residents of the place in which health center was located.