Physicians' behavior and attitude toward Review system of National Health Insurance claim in Korea

진료비 심사제도에 대한 개원의 들의 태도 및 만족도

The purposes of this study are to understand the doctors' attitude and satisfaction about the review system of national health insurance claim in Korea and to suggest the way to improve this system This study conducted a survey of the doctors registered in the medical association in Seoul city. The survey was performed as a form of self-administered questionnaire from January 2004 to February 2004. The contents of questionnaire dealt with doctors' attitude and satisfaction about the review system of medical service claim. Totally, 1,037 members replied to our survey and we analysed 981 doctors' data, excluding incomplete responses. As a result, 89.7% of repliers showed a negative attitude about the influences of the review system on improvement of medical service quality, 98.0% of repliers have had experiences that they have given distorted insufficient medical services in order to evade the curtailment of service claim. Also, 91.6% of repliers stated that they have had experiences of intentional modification or alteration of diagnostic code to shun the curtailment. Most of the doctors showed negative attitude to the curtailment procedure and the review system of service claim originally intended to be one of the quality control methods of medical service in Korea also, the development of both scientific and reasonable parameters and criteria for claim is needed. 'Through the improvement of review system for appropriate medical service, there is a need of a way to increase the satisfaction of medical service providers, and to encourage the motivation for quality control. Also, education is strongly needed to provide doctors with sufficient information about review criteria and curtailment cases.