• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.219-226
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was conducted to understand public perception of home-based hospice and identify related factors. Methods: Between August 19, 2014 and August 30, 2014, data were collected using an E-mail questionnaire that was filled by 1,500 adults who were over 20 years of age. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, ${\chi}^2$-test and logistic regression. Results: Among the respondents, 15.9% were aware of home-based hospice care, and 61.3% were willing to receive home-based hospice care. The factors that influenced the participants' willingness to use home-based hospice services included residential district, religion and private health insurance. Respondents who lived in Seoul (OR: 1.56, 95% CI: 1.04~2.33), Gwangju/Jeolla province (OR: 2.02, 95% CI: 1.23~3.32), Busan/Ulsan/South Gyeongsang province (OR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.17~2.82) were more well-aware of home-based hospice care than those who lived in Incheon/Gyeonggi province. The faithful were more informed about the services than those without non-faithful participants (Roman Catholics (OR: 2.03, 95% CI: 1.30~3.17), Protestants (OR: 1.76, 95% CI: 1.22~2.53). Participants who had a private health insurance plan knew more about the services than those without one (OR: 1.45, 95% CI: 1.03~2.04). Conclusion: First, it is necessary to improve perception of the public and healthcare providers regarding home-based hospice care. The government should review a measure to institutionalize operation of a palliative care team at hospitals and community home-based hospice care centers.

• 한국노년학
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.259-276
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• 2011

If frail elderly could use home care services adequately, quality of their life might improve and their costs of service would be decreased. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors on institutionalization of elderly using home care services in Korean long-term care insurance system. This study used the data of '2009 satisfaction survey of Korean long-term care system'. The survey proceeded using sampling data by region, level of long-term care need, and insurance type among beneficiaries from August 2009 to September 2010. The onset dates of institutionalization of 1,230 participants were ascertained from long-term care insurance claim data. This study calculated hazard ratio through Cox Proportional Hazard Model. The results showed that if elderly using home care services suffer a fracture, the hazard ratio of institutionalization is higher significantly. Although not significant, if older persons have more items of damaged cognitive functions, the hazard ratio of institutionalization is higher. The results have policy implications to supplement of home care service system and postpone institutionalization of elderly.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.51-70
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• 2009

Background : Previous studies have reported that enhanced continuity of care prevented a sudden worsening in progress among chronic disease patients, and as a result was favorable for efficient spending of health care funds. This study aims to estimate the continuity of care of Korean with diabetes and to identify factors affecting the continuity of care. Methods : This study used the Korean National Health Insurance Claims Database which includes E11 (ICD-10) as a primary or secondary disease as of 2006. Study population is 1,160,725 type 2 diabetics (20-84 years). Continuity of Care Index (COC), Modified, Modified Continuity Index (MMCI), and Most Frequent Provider Continuity (MFPC) were used as indexes of continuity of care. Results : The continuity of care in the study population was $0.94{\pm}0.10$ as calculated by MMCI, $0.91{\pm}0.16$ as calculated by MFPC and $0.86{\pm}0.23$ as calculated by COC. The lower continuity of care was shown in the patients who were female, 65 and over years old, Medical Aid recipients, 13 times or more visitors, hospital users as main attending medical institution, patients experienced hospitalizations or comorbidities. Conclusion : The continuity of care for adult patients with type 2 diabetes was high in Korea, and showed variation according to patients' characteristics. This result provides empirical evidence for policymakers to develop or strengthen programs for managing patients showing low continuity of care.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.154-168
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• 2023

Background: Legal regulations and fees have been established in Korea to provide visiting oral health care services to individuals with long-term care insurance (LTCI). However, beneficiaries of this service are very limited. Therefore, to improve the Korean system we propose a comparative analysis with the Japanese system. Methods: This study is a descriptive analysis based on secondary data, such as statistics, laws, and service record forms from Korea and Japan. The most recent institutional documents were obtained through a Google search. The variables investigated were financial resources of LTCI, co-payment structure, monthly limit of LTCI benefits, care levels of LTCI, service providers, service costs, contents of service, and the number of cases of service. Results: In both Korea and Japan, LTCI is financed through a combination of taxes and insurance premiums. However, the monthly limit for receiving LTCI services in Japan is about 2.4 times higher than in Korea. Visiting medical and dental treatment is also possible in Japan. Furthermore, nursing staff can provide daily oral health care services according to dental hygienists' instruction unlike Korea. Oral health care services in Korea are focused on oral hygiene and prevention of oral diseases, while Japan additionally provides oral function screening, patient education for oral health management, and training for nursing staff to enhance oral function, eating, and swallowing of the patients. Conclusion: We concluded that the possibility of visiting dental treatment, differences in monthly limit of LTCI benefits, oral function assessment and guidance, as well as collaboration with other healthcare professionals contributed to the difference in the frequency of utilization of visiting oral health care services between Korea and Japan.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.508-517
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• 2021

Background: After the first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in January 2020, Korea has experienced three waves in 2020. This study aimed to analyze changes in health care utilization according to the period of the 1st to 3rd waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We analyzed 3,354,469,401 national health insurance claims from 59,104 medical facilities between 2017 and 2020. Observed-to-expected ratios (O:E ratio) with data from 2017 to 2019 as expected values and data from 2020 as observed values were obtained to analyze changes in medical utilization. T-test was used to test whether the difference of observed and expected values was statistically significant. Results: In 2020, the O:E ratio was 0.894, indicating a decrease in health care utilization overall during the pandemic. The O:E ratio of the 1st wave was 0.832, which was lower than those of the second (0.886) and third (0.873) waves. Health care utilization decreased relatively more among outpatient, women, children and adolescents, and health insurance patients. And health care utilization decreased more in small medical facilities and in Daegu and Gyeongbuk during the first wave. During the pandemic, the O:E ratios of respiratory diseases were 0.486-0.694, while chronic diseases and mental diseases were more than 1.0. Conclusion: Health care utilization decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic overall, and there were differences by COVID-19 waves, and by the characteristics of patients and medical facilities. It is necessary to understand the cause of changes in health care utilization in order to cope with the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.24 no.4 s.36
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• pp.485-495
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• 1991

This study examined the effects of referral requirements for insurance patients which have been enforced since July 1, 1989 when medical insurance coverage was extended to the whole population except beneficiaries of medical assistance program. The requirements are mainly aimed at discouraging the use of tertiary care hospitals by imposing restrictions on the patient's choice of a medical service facility. The expectation is that such change in the pattern of medical care utilization would produce several desirable effects including increased efficiency in patient care and balanced development of various types of medical service facilities. In this study, these effects were assessed by the change in the number of out-patient visits and bed-days per illness episode and the share of each type of facility in the volume of services and the amount of expenditures after the implementation of the new referral system. The data for analysis were obtained from the claims to the insurance for government and school employees. The sample was drawn from the claims for the patients treated during the first six months of 1989, prior to the enforcement of referral requirements, and those of the patients treated during the first six months of 1990, after the enforcement. The 1989 sample included 299,824 claims (3.6% of total) and the 1990 sample included 332,131 (3.7% of total). The data were processed to make the unit of analysis an illness episode instead of an insurance claim. The facilities and types of care utilized for a given illness episode are defined to make up the pathway of medical care utilization. This pathway was conceived of as a Markov Chain process for further analysis. The conclusion emerged from the analysis is that the enforcement of referral requirements resulted in less use of tertiary care hospitals, and thereby decreased the volume of services and the amount of insurance expenses per illness episode. However, there are a few points that have to be taken into account in relation to the conclusion. The new referral system is likely to increase the use of medical services not covered by insurance, so that its impact on national health expenditures would be different from that on insurance expenditures. The extension of insurance coverage must have inereased patient load for all types of medical service organizations, and this increase may be partly responsible for producing the effects attributed to the new referral system. For example, excessive patient load for tertiary care hospitals may lead to the transfer of their patients to other types of facilities. Another point is that the data for this study correspond to very early phase of the new system. But both patients and medical care providers would adapt themselves to the new system to avoid or overcome its disadvantages for them, so as that its effects could change over time. Therefore, it is still necessary to closely monitor the impact of the referral requirements.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.349-356
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• 2014

Background: This study aimed to explore factors associated with the non-use of beneficiaries of long-term care insurance services for the elderly in Jeollanam-do Province by analyzing a dataset obtained from National Health Insurance Service. Methods: The study sample consists of 1,663 individuals who were evaluated as eligible for long-term care insurance services in Jeollanam-do Province during the period of July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009. As a dependent variable, the non-use of the service was defined as one when a beneficiary had used it once or more times during one year after he or she was evaluated as eligible and as zero otherwise. A proportion analysis was conducted to describe characteristics of study sample. Chi-square tests were used to compare general characteristics between beneficiaries who had used the services and those who had not used them. Multiple logistic regressions were performed by three models including additional sets of explanatory variables such as socio-demographic characteristics, health conditions, and economic status. Results: Main results are summarized as follows. The proportion of beneficiaries who had not used the service was 14.5% of all beneficiaries. According to the results from the model using all explanatory variables, the factors associated with the non-use of the services were residence location, dwelling place, type of desired service, level of care needs, and instrumental activities of daily life limitations. Conclusion: In particular, regarding the type of desired service, the cash benefit showed a high likelihood of the non-use of the service; it had an odds ratio (OR) of 50.212 (95% confidence interval [CI], 24.00-105.04) compared with home service. In case of dwelling place, a hospital showed also a high likelihood of the non-use with an OR of 20.71 (95% CI, 10.12-42.44) compared with home.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.173-179
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• 2021

Background: In Korea, the length of stay and medical expenses incurred by medical aid patients are increasing at a rate faster than the national health insurance. Therefore, there is a need to create a management strategy for each type of hospitalization to manage the length of stay of medical aid patients. Methods: The study used data from the 2019 National Health Insurance Claims. We analyzed the factors that affect the length of stay for 186,576 medical aid patients who were hospitalized for more than 31 days, with a focus on the type of hospitalization in long-term care hospitals. Results: The study found a significant correlation between gender, age, medical aid type, chronic disease ratio, long-term care hospital patient classification, and hospitalization type variables as factors that affect the length of hospital stay. The analysis of the differences in the length of stay for each type of hospitalization showed that the average length of stay is 291.4 days for type 1, 192.9 days for type 2, and 157.0 days for type 3, and that the difference is significant (p<0.0001). When type 3 was 0, type 1 significantly increased by 99.4 days, and type 2 by 36.6 days (p<0.0001). Conclusion: A model that can comprehensively view factors, such as provider factors and institutional factors, needs to be designed. In addition, to reduce long stays for medical aid patients, a mechanism to establish an early discharge plan should be prepared and concerns about underutilization should be simultaneously addressed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.527-540
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• 2011

Some patients tend to visit tertiary hospitals instead of non-tertiary hospitals for minor illnesses, which is a chronic problem within the Korean health care delivery system. In order to reduce the number of patients with minor severity diseases unnecessarily utilizing the tertiary medical services in Korea, the Ministry of Health and Welfare raised the outpatient co-insurance rate for the tertiary hospitals in July, 2009. Another increase in the prescription drug co-insurance rate by the general and tertiary hospitals is scheduled to take place in the second half of 2011. An increase in copayments may discourage the utilization rate of medical services among the underprivileged or patients who require complicated procedures. This study aims to analyze the diabetic patients' utilization rates of tertiary hospitals according to the Comorbidity score. Diabetic patients' data was gathered from the Health Insurance Claims Records in the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service between 2007-2009. Comorbidity scores are measured by the Charlson Comorbidity Index and the Elixhauser Index. Chi-square and logistic regressions were performed to compare the utilization rates of both insulin-dependents (n=94,026) and non-insulin-dependents (n=1,424,736) in tertiary hospitals. The higher Comorbidity outcomes in the insulin-dependent diabetic patients who didn't visit tertiary hospitals compared to those who did, was expected. However, after adjusting the gender, age, location, first visits and complications, the groups that scored >=1 on the comorbidity scale utilized the tertiary hospitals more than the O score group. Non-insulin-diabetic patients with higher Comorbidity scores visited tertiary hospitals more than patients who received lower grades. This study found that patients suffering from severe diabetes tend to frequently visit the tertiary hospitals in Korea. This result implied that it is important for Korea to improve the quality of its primary health care as well as to consider a co-insurance rate increase.

• 한국노년학
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.917-933
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• 2009

This study examined the factors affecting forms of long-term care service use by elderly and the forms of use are classified facility care service, home care service, and unused. It is used data from the 2nd pilot program for the Long Term Care Insurance scheme and it is analysed 5,497 cases. Multi-nominal regression is used. According to the results, women use formal service more than man do, and wowen use facility care than home care. Those who eligible for National Basic Livelihood Security System(NBLSS) are shown to have higher use of formal care(especially facility care) than the middle income class, and the low income class than the middle income class has lower use of formal care. In addition, higher the family care is available, lower the taking part in the service. The big cities and mid sized cities than rural are used the formal service and moreover mid sized cities are used facility care than home care. Furthermore, the level of care need is determinants of service use and function of ADL, IADL, and abnormal behavior is also determinants of formal service(especially facility care). But nursing need and rehabilitation need are not determinants of formal service use. Based on the results, the recommendations are developed and implemented for the improvement the elderly long-term care insurance.