Private Health Insurance and the Use of Health Care Services: a Review of Empirical Research in Korea

The arguments exist that private health insurance(PHI) policy holders tend to use the health care services more than non-policy holders due to their little out-of-pocket spending, resulting in the adverse effects on the finances of National Health Insurance. This study aims to increase the objective understanding of the issue and to draw a direction of further research, by reviewing the articles, reports and statistics which examined the effects of purchasing PHI policies on health care utilization. Significant differences in healthcare utilization, except for the very partial increase of utilization in outpatient settings, have been not found. The similar trends of the results have existed in a few previous studies which tried to control the endogeneity of medical use and health insurance with latent variables which affect the decision on medical use and health insurance. However, we can not exclude the potential change of healthcare utilization patterns because the portion of the insured of indemnity PHI is becoming rapidly larger in the market. For further research, we should try to obtain the objective information of subjects' past medical history, health status, health related behavior, and income affecting purchase of PHI and utilization of healthcare services. And the efforts of controlling the endogeneity of medical use and health insurance with latent variables which affect the decision on medical use and health insurance, are very considerable.

민영의료보험이 의료이용에 미치는 영향 : 국내 실증적 연구의 고찰