• 보건행정학회지
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.167-203
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• 1992

The effects of regional health insurance on access to ambulatory care are examined in this paper. Access is measured as use-disability ratios. The data are collected in a household interview survey at Hwachon county before and after the introduction of regional health insurance. Before the introduction of regional health insurance, low-income class has less contacts with physicians than high-income class. This disparity in accessibility among economic classes is reduced with the health insurance coverage, but not removed, even after adjusting for health need.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제21권2호
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• pp.419-430
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• 1988

This study was performed in a rural community, Kanghwa county which was introduced to a regional medical insurance pilot program in 1982. The purposes of this study were, firstly, to observe the changes in ambulatory care utilization in the three years 1982, 1983 and 1987 : secondly, to analyse factors which convert perceived medical care needs to effective medical care demand. During the three periods, a serial interview survey was performed to determine the changes in medical utilization before and after the regional medical insurance program implementation. The number of subjects was 3,356 persons in the year 1982, 3,705 in 1983 and 2,745 in 1987. The results of the study were as follows : 1. Total ambulatory care utilization rates per 100 persons during a 2-week period were 23.6 in the year 1982, 21.8 in 1983, and 29.3 in 1987; and physician visit rates were 6.1 in 1982, 11.7 in 1983, and 14.9 in 1987. Thus, compared to the total utilization rate there was a definite increase in physician visit, and during the study periods there was a decrease in drug store visits whereas an increase in hospital or clinic visits was noticed. 2. The rates of effective demand for medical care need were 70.7% in 1982, 70.5% in 1983 and 75.9% in 1987 : and the rates of patients who visited physicians were 20.2% in 1982, 42.8% in 1983 and 35.6% in 1987. Thus, physician visits increased sharply by introducing the medical insurance program, but after the latent medical care demands were fulfilled, there was a slight decrease in the physician visits. 3. The number of acute symptoms and the number of chronic symptoms were common determinants of total ambulatory care utilization and physician visits. Besides the medical care need factors, age in 1982, sex and accessibility in 1983, and accessibility in 1987 were statistically significant determinants of the total utilization ; sex and accessibility in 1983, and education in 1987 were also statistically significant determinants of the physician visit. 4. For persons with perceived acute symptoms during the 2-week periods, accessibility in total utilization and age in physician visits were common discriminating factors of ambulatory care utilization in the three years, and education and income were also statistically significant variables. For persons with perceived chronic symptoms, occupation and income were statistically significant discriminating variables commonly observed in total utilization and physician visits.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.47-60
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• 1988

The monthly ambulatory treatment days in newly detected hypertension group and known hypertension group were analyzed. The population was identified through the records of screening examination given by Korea Medical Insurance Corporation during the period from April to July, 1986. From the records of screening examination, 11,614 hypertensive patients were identified. By random sampling,959 patients were selected : among them, 544 fell under the category of known hypertension group and the other 415 fell under the newly detected hypertension group. The monthly ambulatory treatment days of these patients during the period from the April, 1985 to September, 1987 were analyzed in order to compare the exents of medical care utilization as well as to define and analyze the determinants responsible for the ambulatory treatment days between the two groups. The following results were obtained. 1) In the known hypertension group, no statistically significant changes in the ambulatory treatment days was observed after, in comparision to before, the screening examination. However, in the newly detected hypertension group the medical care utilization increased after the screening examination because of hypertension. 2) The ambulatory treatment days for hypertension of the known hypertension was statistically significant and higher than that of the newly detected hypertension group after screening examination. 3) There was no statistically significant change in the ambulatory treatment days in association with diseases other than hypertension in either group before and after the screening examination. 4) There was no statistically significant variable responsible for ambulatory treatment days in the known hypertension group. However, the income was a statistically significant variable in the newly detected hypertension group. 5) After the screening examination, the variables determining the ambulatory treatment days were the age of the patient and the diastolic blood pressure in the known hypertension group. These variables responsible for 2.02% of the total ambulatory treatment days. In the newly detected hypertension group, the income was a statistically significant variable which was responsible for 2.10% of total ambulatory treatment days. The above results satisfied the hypothesis that there would be no significant changes in the ambulatory treatment days before and after the screening examination in the known hypertension group. Also the hypothesis that there would be no significant change in the exents of medical care utilization for the diseases other than hypertension before and after the screening examination in either group was satisfied Also the medical care utilization was significantly higher in the known hypertension group than the newly detected hypertension group after the screening examination. This finding satisfied the hypothesis. This study was limited by the lack of considering fully the variables reponsible for the clinical symptoms of hypertension as well as for the individual characteristics. Thus, the result of this study are not fully adequate to define the determinants responsible for the exents of medical care utilization. In the future studies on medical rare utilization, additional variables should be considered.

• 보건교육건강증진학회지
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.1-12
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• 2012

Objectives: Several practice guidelines recommended both medication and behavior modification to control hypertension. The objective of this study was to analyze ambulatory care utilization pattern and related factors. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted among 45,267 new users who initiated treatment with hypertensive drugs in 2003. Korean National Health Insurance Claims Data was used to study the medical care utilization behavior and related factors after treatment initiation for up to four years. Taking prescription was considered as medical care utilization. Results: More than 20% of patients discontinued visiting physicians for prescription after initiating antihypertensive drug therapy. The average number of institutions visited by patients was about 1.3 annually. Clinic was the most frequently visited institution by patients. In GEE analysis, probability of continuous visit one institution after initiating antihypertensive drug treatment increased in patients who were women, old, have comorbidity, visited clinic or hospital mainly in previous year. Conclusions: Young hypertensive male patients who have no major comorbidity showed high possibility to discontinue medical service utilization. It is necessary to educate these targeted patients about importance of hypertension management in early stage after treatment initiation.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.460-470
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• 1998

By expanding health insurance, customers will carry a smaller burden of medical costs. As a result, the number of visits to a physician increase and this result in the improvement of medical accessibility. But medical care utilization may be changed not only by insurance status but also by socio-demographic factor, economic status and other factors. The question thus remains, at which level of accessibility and what price of medical care service in health insurance will the customer and the medical care service be satisfied. The price of medical care service ls comprised of the customer's out-of-pocket money and the costs not covered by health insurance. If the price of medical care services in health insurance are appropriate, medical care utilization should not differ because of the difference in income status or the acuteness of illness. But If the price is not adequate, low income groups will receive relatively low medical care utilization, particularly in the case of chronic disease. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the differences in medical care utilization among the various income groups and those with varying acuteness of illness. The major hypotheses to test in this study are : (i) whether there are differences in medical care utilization among different income groups exist, (ii) whether differences in medical care utilization among different income groups exist with the hospital type. (iii) whether differences in medical care utilization among different income groups exist with the acuteness of illness and with age. The data was collected from the JongRo District Health Insurance Society in Seoul. A total of 118,336 persons were selected as the final sample for this study. The major findings of this study were as follows; 1. The volume of ambulatory utilization among users was statistically significant by income level. 2. Among different income groups, the volume of ambulatory utilization was statistically significant by the acuteness of illness. 3. Higher income groups with chronic diseases had a greater volume of ambulatory utilization than other groups.

• 보건행정학회지
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.128-138
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of differential coinsurance policy on prescription drug coverage of outpatients by types of medical institutions. Methods: In this study, we used a sample cohort database of the National Health Insurance Service and frequency analysis and marginal logistic regression model using generalized estimating equation were used for statistical analysis. Results: The summary on the major research is followed. First, about 16% of patients who used only tertiary or general hospital due to 52 ambulatory care sensitive conditions before policy implementation moved to hospitals and clinics. However, about 57% of them still use tertiary or general hospital. Second, the factors influencing the utilization of hospitals and clinics after the implementation of the policy were gender, age, and income level. As a result, the policy is effective to reduce the medical use of outpatient mental patients in tertiary or general hospital, but the effect is not significant. Conclusion: Therefore, in order to achieve the purpose of the policy for establishing the health care delivery system, it is necessary to adjust the co-payment so as to feel the burden on the co-payment when the outpatient for 52 ambulatory care sensitive conditions is used at the tertiary or general hospital.

• 보건행정학회지
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.98-115
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• 2003

Concerns about growing health insurance expenditures became a national Issue in 2001 when the National Health Insurance went into a deficit. Increases in spending for ambulatory care shared the largest portion of the problem. Methods and systems to control the spending should be developed and a system to measure case mix of providers is one of core components of the control system. The objectives of this article is to examine the feasibility of applying Korean Diagnosis Related Groups (KDRGs) to classify health insurance claims for ambulatory care and to identify problem areas of the classification. A database of 11,586,270 claims for ambulatory care delivered during January 2002 was obtained for the study, and the final number of claims analyzed was 8,319,494 after KDRG numbers were assigned to the data and records with an error KDRG were excluded from the study. The unit of analysis was a claim and resource use was measured by the sum of charges incurred during a month at a department of a hospital of at a clinic. Within group variance was assessed by th coefficient of variation (CV), and the classification accuracy was evaluated by the variance reduction achieved by the KDRG classification. The analyses were performed on both all and non-outlier data, and on a subset of the database to examine the validity of study results. Data were assigned to 787 KDRGs among 1,244 KDRGs defined in the classification system. For non-outlier data, 77.4％ of KDRGs had a CV of charges from tertiary care hospitals less than 100％ and 95.43％ of KDRGs for data from clinics. The variance reduction achieved by the KDRG classification was 40.80％ for non-outlier claims from tertiary care hospitals, 51.98％ for general hospitals, 40.89% for hospitals, and 54.99% for clinics. Similar results were obtained from the analyses performed on a subset of the study database. The study results indicated that KDRGs developed for a classification of inpatient care could be used for ambulatory care, although there were areas where the classification should be refined. Its power to predict tile resource utilization showed a potential for its application to measure case mix of providers for monitoring and managing delivery of ambulatory care. The issue concerning the quality of diagnostic information contained in insurance claims remains to be improved, and significance of future studies for other classification systems based on visits or episodes is guaranteed.

• 모자간호학회지
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.24-32
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• 1994

본 연구는 국민건강조사의 대상가구 중 0-4세 어린이와 엄마가 있는 3,002가구(1989), 1,623가구(1992)의 모아를 대상으로 의료이용 양상을 비교하였다. 그 결과 엄마의 의료이용이 어린이의 의료이용과 유의한 상관관계를 나타내고 있으며, 특히 건강한 어린이 그룹에서 어머니의 의료이용 수준이 어린이의 의료이용량에 크게 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 엄마의 의료이용이 엄마와 가족의 특성을 나타내는 대리변수로서 어린이의 의료이용에 영향을 미치는지 알아 보기 위해 엄마와 가족의 특성을 나타내는 가구원 수, 생활수준, 의료보험 종류, 엄마의 교육수준, 엄마의 평소 건강상태를 포함한 모형과 포함하지 않은 모형을 분석하여 비교한 결과 엄마의 의료이용 수준이 어린이의 의료이용에 독자적으로 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다.

• 보건행정학회지
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.4-11
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• 2016

Background: Hospital admissions for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs), which are widely used as an indicator of poor access to primary care, can be used as an efficiency indicator of healthcare use in countries providing good access to health care. Korea, which has a national health insurance (NHI) system and a good supply of health care resources, is one such country. To quantify admission rates of ACSC and identify characteristics influencing variation in Korean health care institutions. Methods: By using NHI claims data, we computed the mean ACSC admission rate for all institutions with ACSC admissions. Results: The average ACSC admission rate for 4,461 institutions was 1.45%. Hospitals and clinics with inpatient beds showed larger variations in the ACSC admission rate (0%-87.9% and 0%-99.6%, respectively) and a higher coefficient of variation (7.96 and 2.29) than general/tertiary care hospitals (0%-19.1%, 0.85). The regression analysis results indicate that the ACSC admission rate was significantly higher for hospitals than for clinics (${\beta}=0.986$, p<0.05), and for private corporate institutions than public institutions (${\beta}=0.271$, p<0.05). Conclusion: Substantial variations in ACSC admission rates could suggest the potential problem of inefficient use of healthcare resources. Since hospitals and private corporate institutions tend to increase ACSC admission rates, future health policy should focus on these types of institutions.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.419-427
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• 2016

본 연구는 한국의료패널 조사 자료 2008-2012년의 연간 통합자료를 활용하여 흡연력에 따른 구강질환과 관련하여 치과외래이용횟수에 미치는 영향을 알아보고자 하였다. 2010-2012년의 연간 통합자료 중 연령이 20세-60세이면서 3차례 모두 조사된 남성 3,866명을 최종 분석대상으로 하였다. 음이항회귀모형을 이용한 분석에서 연령, 혼인상태, 가구소득수준와 만성질환여부를 통제한 후 치과외래이용횟수에 미치는 영향은 유의하였으며 흡연력이 10갑년 증가할 때마다 치과외래이용횟수는 6%씩 증가할 것으로 예측되었다. 특히, 40~50대 남성의 치과외래이용횟수는 비흡연자에 비교하여 평균적으로 20~29.9갑년의 흡연자는 25%, 30갑년 이상 흡연자는 52% 더 많이 이용하는 것으로 나타났다.