• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.429-439
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• 2022

Background: The risk observatory (RO) of the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) provides strategic support to the German Social Accident Insurance Institutions (GSAII) in proactive prevention. It does so by identifying future challenges and opportunities for occupational safety and health (OSH) resulting from new trends and developments that affect employees as well as children in elementary education, pupils, and students. Methods: The core of the RO is an online survey that relies on a pool of new trends and developments identified via internet and literature research. 865 prevention experts of the GSAII and the DGUV participated in the survey. They rated trends and developments regarding their sector-specific risks and opportunities for OSH in the 5 years to come. Results: Sector-specific and over-all results show that besides well-known OSH risks such as musculoskeletal stress and noise, developments relevant for OSH come to the fore that do not have their origin in work itself, but are strongly influenced by political, social, economic, environmental, or technical developments that accident insurance can only peripherally influence. Shortage of skilled staff was identified as a threat to OSH in almost all sectors. Conclusions: Prevention must find ways to address repercussions of such OSH risks. Cooperation and political awareness are therefore gaining in importance. Also, implementing a prevention culture in society and strengthening individuals' health and safety literacy, e.g., by target-group-specific communication and sensitization, as well as early safety and health education, help to counteract those OSH risks.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.275-302
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• 2013

The Unites States has been plagued with soaring health care costs and an alarmingly large number of uninsured population. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ushered in the most sweeping health care reform in the United States since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 to address these issues. The law's requirement for individuals to purchase health insurance (the so-called "individual mandate"), however, not only caused a political stir but also prompted constitutional challenges. Some questioned whether the federal government, lacking general police power, could require its citizens to buy unwanted insurance based on its enumerated powers under the U.S. Constitution. This paper summarizes the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of individual mandate, and explores how the decision relates to Korea's own universal health care.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

Reforming the insurance scheme for herbal drugs in the National Health Insurance is a long-cherished desire for Korean Medicine doctors. Because most Korean Medicine doctors distrust the quality of existing insured herbal drugs, which are powdered mixes of each herbal extract, the use and the expenditure of insured herbal drugs have been decreased in the last ten years. To address this, it has been demanded to insure the composite type of herbal preparation, which is the extracted powder of the whole prescription, to the benefit coverage for herbal drugs. Many stake holders, however, have so far been unable to reach an agreement on this. In this situation, Sasang Constitutional prescriptions are expected to make a breach of insuring the composite herbal preparations, because some of them were approved as prescription drugs in 1999. In this review, I discussed the problems of insured herbal drugs, the necessity of insuring the composite herbal preparations and Sasang Constitutional prescriptions, and the tasks of Sasang Constitutional Society to insure them.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2010

Amid the rapid transitions in both local and international markets, the Korean dental industry is facing more challenges than at any time in its history. This paper tried to address some of the key issues faced by the industry as well as the policy issues and I direction of implementation that the Korean Dental Association (KDA) is expected to tackle. First, the direction of reforming the country's health insurance system was examined with emphasis on the expected changes in and improvement of the fee-for-service reimbursement system (FFSRS) and medical reimbursement system (MRS). With FFSRS, the most urgent issue would be ameliorating the current lop-sided, unreasonable reimbursement system that prevents suppliers from voicing their opinions. To help achieve that goal, the limited authority and responsibility of the president of National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) as one of the contract-making parties must be clarified. In addition, the functions of NHIC's Health Insurance Finance Committee must be restricted; at the same time, the panel organization of the Health Insurance Policy Review Committee needs to be reformed to embrace greater democracy. As with MRS, the government is considering a block budget bill to help promote efficiency in employing and managing the health insurance fund. Policymakers must understand that the implementation of such proposal could exacerbate an already dire situation. Improving MRS requires meeting the following preconditions: (a) the structurally vicious cycle of small charge-small salary needs to be resolved, and a certain percentage of fee raise must be guaranteed on a yearly basis to help adjust the fee system to a more realistic level; (b) the supply-and-demand balance in producing health care professionals must be improved including the prevention of oversupply of doctors, nurses, etc., and; (c) institutional strategies must be provided to enhance the quality of medical care and ensure academic advancement in health care disciplines.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2008

Objectives : We examined the effect of sociodemographic factors, cancer, and psychiatric disorders on suicide by gender and age-specific patterns in South Korea. Methods : The study is a case-control study. Claim data was obtained from the national health insurance database and national death registration database. The number of people who committed suicide was 11,523, which was matched with a control group consisting of ten times as many people at 115,230 selected from the national health insurance and medical aids beneficiaries. The medical utilization of the case group was one year before death and that of the control group was from July 1,2003 to June 30, 2004. Four variables-address, economic status, presence of a psychiatric disease, and cancer-were used in multiple logistic regression analyses. Results : Living in cities or in rural areas showed a greater risk for suicide than living in a metropolitan city. Low economic status, the presence of a psychiatric disorder, and cancer were also statistically meaningful risk factors for suicide. The three major psychiatric diseases, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, and bipolar disorder, were meaningful in all age groups, but the scale of the odds ratio differed by the age group. Only the psychiatric disorder variable was meaningful in the adolescent group, whereas a psychiatric disorder and economic status were meaningful for the young adult group, and all variables were meaningful for the middle-aged group. A psychiatric disorder and cancer were meaningful in the elderly group, economic status was meaningful for male subjects, and address was meaningful for female subjects. Conclusions : Factors such as living in city or rural areas, low economic status, the presence of a psychiatric disorder, and cancer were statistically meaningful risk factors in suicide. These factors also differed by age group. Therefore, policymakers should establish policies for suicide prevention that are relevant for each age group.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.51-60
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the opinions of Korean medical doctors on how to elucidate possible remedial measures for expanding the health insurance benefits coverage item of Korean medicine (KM). Methods: An online survey was conducted to all members who had registered e-mail address in the association of Korean medicine from 1 to 17 November, 2016. Statistical analysis was performed and odds ratio with 95% confidence interval were calculated by each subgroup. Results: A total of 743 members answered the questions and the response rate was 4.1%. The priorities for expanding health insurance benefits were as follows: thermographic imaging, Sasang constitution typing test, and pulse wave among examinations; pharamacopuncture, embedding acupuncture, and acupotomy among procedures; Chuna manual therapy, manual therapy for meridian muscle, and Daoyin exercise therapy among manual therapies; low-frequency electrical therapy, traction, paraffin bath, and light therapy among physical therapies; and aromatherapy, enema therapy, and color therapy among activities of KM. Conclusions: It should be covered by the national health insurance (NHI) of KM that thermographic imaging, pharmacoacupuncture, Chuna manual therapy, low-frequency electrical therapy, aromatherapy as a top priority. We also suggest that basic medical tests, such as blood, urine, or imaging, should be included in the coverage of the NHI of KM. It is necessary to review the expertise and public opinions about the plans and priorities for the conversion of the desired medical services to be covered by the NHI.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2015.11a
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• pp.60-61
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• 2015

In recent years, the accidents in construction projects are continuously increasing due to their complexity and variety. However, few studies have been conducted regarding the risk prediction model and the database of risk assessment in construction projects. To address of these issues, the objective of this study is to analyze the accident causes by using insured claim payouts of insurance companies. First, the descriptive analysis of accidents causes is conducted according to scheduling rate, season, and total construction costs. Second, the correlation analysis is conducted between accidents causes and total construction costs. In the future, the risk assessment model can be developed to quantify the accident causes in construction projects to estimate claim payouts of insurance companies.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.271-280
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• 2002

Recently, many companies have applied data mining techniques to promote competitive power in the field of their business market. In this study, we address how data mining, that is a technique to enable to discover knowledge from a deluge of data, Is used in an executed project in order to support decision making of an enterprise. Also, we develope scoring model on customer attrition probability for automobile-insurance company using data mining techniques. The development of scoring model in domestic insurance is given as an example concretely.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.135-140
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• 2022

Background: Coal mining is a hazardous industry. The purpose of the study is to identify the nature of occupational injuries and diseases among coal miners and to determine the factors that affect the rate of injury and duration of time loss from work. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using accepted workers' compensation claims data of 30,390 Australian coal miners between July 2003 and June 2017. Results: Musculoskeletal and fracture conditions accounted for approximately 60% of claims in all occupational groups. Cox regression analysis showed that older age and female gender were significant predictors of longer time off work. Injury types and occupations were associated with work time loss: mental health conditions, and machine operators and drivers had significantly longer durations of time off work. Conclusion: Future research can further address how these factors led to longer time off work so that coal industry regulators, employers, and healthcare providers can target interventions more effectively to these at-risk workers.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.107-129
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine Korean government's efforts in policy making and implementation regarding the Korea National Health Insurance System in the past and suggest a new paradigm for future policy changes. The structural and political characteristics of the Korea National Health Insurance, where health care services are provided almost exclusively by the private providers and funding for health comes equally from public and private sources, imply persistent difficulties in the operation of the system This may partially explain why the Korean system has continually experienced conflicts among stakeholders whenever there was an attempt to change policy. In this paper, we discuss four cases to illustrate such difficulties and barriers. We propose that in order to address these challenges and reduce policy errors as well as unintended results, it is necessary to restructure policy making process from being oriented toward 'quantitative expansion' to 'qualitative maturity', from a 'linear thinking' to a 'system thinking', from taking a 'top-down' to a 'governance and participatory' decision making process.