• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.27 no.1 s.45
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• pp.107-116
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• 1994

The United States adopted DRG based prospective payment system (PPS) in order to control the inflation of health care costs. No study used statistical test while many studies reported the cost containing effect of the PPS. To study impacts of the PPS on the Medicare expenditure, this study set the following three hypotheses (1) The PPS decelerated the increase in the hospital expenditure (Part A), (2) the PPS accelerated the increase in the expenditure of outpatients and physicians (Part B), (3) the increase in total expenditure was decelerated inspite of the spill over (substitution) effect because saving in the Part A expenditure were greater than losses in the Part B expenditure. The dependent variables are per capita hospital expenditure, per capita Part B expenditure, and per capita total expenditure for the Medicare beneficiaries. An intervention analysis, which added intervention effect to the time series variation on the Box-Jenkins model, was used. The observations included 120 months from 1978 to 1987. The results are as follows : (1) The annual increase in the per capita Part A expenditure was $5.11 after the implementation of DRG where as that before the PPS had been $11.1. The effect of the reduction ($5.99) was statistically significient (t=-3.9). (2) The spill over (substitution) effect existed because the annual increase in the per capita Part B expenditure was accelerated by $1.73 (t=1.91) after the implementation of the PPS. (3) The increase in the total Medicare expenditure per capita was reduced by $4.26 (t=-2.19) because the spill over effect was less than cost savings in the Part A expenditure.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.18-27
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• 2018

Purposes: This study aims to investigate the policy effect of mandatory application of DRG for 7 disease groups in general and tertiary hospitals. Methodology: As DRG was fully implemented in July 2013, this study compares two periods before and after the change(from July 2012 to June 2013, and from July 2013 to June 2014). The benefit claim data of the National Health Insurance Service was used for the comparison. Target patients were those who visited general or tertiary hospitals between July 2012 to June 2014. For pharmaceutical consumption, Interrupted Time Series (ITS) analysis was used to see the effect of DRG mandatory application. Findings: The number of drugs prescribed per patient and pharmaceutical expenditure both showed significant reduction compared to before the DRG implementation. Practical Implications: This study used 2 sets of 1 year period data from before and after the full implementation of DRG to analyze pharmaceutical consumption. When the comparison data accumulates further, it would be possible to conduct more diverse analysis to assess policy effect and to provide way forward for the future.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.5-46
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• 1989

The current medical payment Insurance Rates in Korea stipulate charges for medical treatment by the doctor, pharmaceutist, medical technician and maternity nurse. But unfortunately didn't specify those charges for nursing done by the professional nurse. Only basic nursing fee is accounted insufficiently in current medical insurance fee schedule. therefore, Being face with covering entire people by medical insurance by 1991, It seems that the problems pertaining to operating the hospital and medical insurance system would be incessantly expanded in that no mention is made of medical charges rendered by major medical producer service in the current system, For that reason, this study made an attempt to clarify the importance the professional nursing puts of the current medical payment. The purpose of this study was to accounting nursing fee which diveded into the current medical fee schedule. (Method) 1. Data collection; Importance and difficulties in nursing activities was conducted in 'S' National University Hospital. Total nursing activities were selected 72 items which included direct care and indirect care. This study was conducted to evaluating the degree of importance and difficulties according to nursing activities through questionnaire to 204 RN. and so relative difficulties (acuity) were computered because the nursing cost level of each nursing service was differently established by the equivalent coefficient according to degree of relative difficulty and time required. 2. Calculation of cost according to nursing activities; After 47 nursing activities were selected in General surgery nursing units, calculation of nursing cost was as follows Cost of Nursing activity = (relative difficulty X Average hourly wage and benefits of nurse) + material cost of nursing -t- Average nursing administration cost So, Calculated cost by nursing activities was compared to current non-insured and insurance rate. 3. Calculation of nursing cost by K - DRG ; Total of 578 patients who were hospitalized in General Surgery units from January to March 1988 ware classified by K - DRG After estimation of total nursing cost based on the K-DRG, verified the appropriateness of basic nursing fee in medical insurance rate (Results) 1. Analysis of degree of importance and difficulties were 4.16 and 3.67 based on 5 point scale. This score were judged that it is worthy specifying the nursing fee 2. The nursing cost of 47 nursing service items in general surgery patients showed that the average cost of nursing activity was \1374.5 and The lowest cost was \217 of 'oral administration nursing' item, The highest cost was \11,025 of 'saline enematill clear' item 3. The result of comparison between the calculated cost by nursing activities against the current non-insured and insurance rate showed that 13 items(27.7%) involved to payment of insurance rate, 9 items(19.1%) involved to non-insured rate, remainder 25 items (53.2%) were not charged anywhere of total 47 nursing activities 4. When calculated cost by nursing activities was 100. current insurance rate was 62.3, non-insured rate was 176.6. Therefore this showed that most of non-insured rate were higher than calculated nursing cost. The insurance rate, however, were lower than it. Reim-bursement was imputed to non-insured patients. So the current rate system became estrainged from cost system. When Remainder 25 items of nursing activities compared' to \1390 of daily basic nursing fee per patient belonged to payment as a insurance fee schedule, basic nursing fee schedule was 1-2% of calculated cost of nursing activities. Therefore it showed that nursing fee was not counted adequately in it. 5. Nursing cost by K-DRG estimated in chart review based on counting number of nursing activities and length of stay The result showed that average amount of total nursing cost was \183828.1 Comparison of nursing cost calculated by K- DRG and basic nursing fee schedule showed that only 12.3% of nursing cost was charged (Conclusion) From the above research result, It is fact that nursing prime cost should be estimated more accurately and included adequately in current medical payment system. The payment system of nursing activities should be introduced not only nursing activities of drug administration and injection fee belonged to insurance fee schedule but also most nursing activities belonged not to mekical fee schedule. Even if introducing payment system of nursing activities, It should be estimated scientific method of Accounting nursing cost So nurses could offer nursing care of good quality, thereby they could make a great contribution not merely to the convalescence of the patient but to the promotion of the people's health.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.103-111
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• 2013

Seven diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) prospective payment system is going to expand to all hospitals including university hospitals this year. However there are few studies on the change of practice pattern under prospective payment system in the university hospital setting. So This study was intended to predict the practice pattern change after the introduction of 7 DRGs prospective payment system in a university hospital setting. To predict the change of practice pattern, this study used simulation technique. Five hundred and nineteen patients classified as 5 DRGs in a university hospital were selected for simulation. The change of practice pattern were predicted based on clinicians' opinion. We also predicted payment change by service items. Major findings of this study are as follows. First, the total medical payment was reduced by 14.4%. The drug payment change (8.8%) took most of total payment reduction. The followings are the change of treatment material cost (3.2%), the change of laboratory tests cost (1.8%), the change of room charge (0.5%), and other payment change (0.1%), respectively. Second, most of the reduction in total medical payment resulted from the decreased amount of medical services themselves. The transfer of medical services to outpatient setting took up only 4.9% of the total payment reduction. The change of unit price or composition took up 5.5% of the total payment reduction. In this study we found that it is possible to reduce the inpatient services through practice pattern change in university hospital setting. However, it needs to be careful to adjust DRG payment after the reduction of provided services, because most of reduction was not due to service transfer but to service volume reduction. It is desirable to utilize the saving from practice pattern change as incentive to improve quality of care.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.138-162
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• 2004

This study was performed to investigate small area variation in rates of three common surgeries in general surgery department across 156 small areas. Three surgery rates were analyzed; Anal and/or stomal procedures, inguinal and/or femoral hernia procedures, appendectomy. Methods: We used health insurance claims data and the number of patients were 13,845, 2,154 and 7,151 persons respectively. Surgery rates were directly standardized with age and sex and logistic regression was used to analyze surgery rates. Results: Mapping of the surgery rates, there was small area variation in anal and/or stomal procedures. The clinic which was located in more competitive market and chose DRG payment system tends to do more anal and/or stomal procedures. There was no factor except DRG bed rates had effect on rate of inguinal and/or femoral hernia procedures. Conclusions: Findings of this study will contribute to developing investigation method on small area variation and policy to reduce the variation such as developing evidence based medical practice guideline.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.25-39
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• 1996

The Korean government has a new system for charging patient care for patients in hospital, on hold for the present(9 / 1995) but to start implementation in certain areas of patient care next year. From the latter half of next year the Ministry of Health and Welfare would like to start demonstration projects for hospitals who want to start using DRGs for frequently seen medical diagnosis and for patients with a course that is predictable and for whom non-insurance costs are minimal : such as the patient who has a delivery, cesarean deliveries, cataract surgery, tonsillectomy or an appendectomy, and apply the DRG system of payment for hospital care for these patients. The purpose of this study was to establish a recording system to give effective home health care to postpartum women and their newborns. Recently the government announced a DRG system to apply to postpartum women for pilot purposes starting next year. This gives impetus to the need to develop home care records that will allow for systematic recording and provide continuity and consistency in care across all health professionals and with in-depth communication between the professions to assure high quality care. There has been a rise in medical costs and a shortage of patient bed space in hospitals, particularly since the introduction of national medical insurance. The study focused on developing client selection criteria, a primary assessment tool, progress notes and nursing diagnoses applicable to postpartum and newborn clients. Selection criteria for home health care, assessment tool content, nurses progress notes and diagnoses were developed through a review of the literature, advice from professionals who are expert in home health care and actual practice in the use of recording tools through workshops. The recommendations based on the research results are as follows : 1) Replication and application of these tools is needed to test the validity of the tools 2) In order to have systematic nursing records standardization of records has to be done after nurses have had experience using them. 3) Reliability and validity of the tools has to be established through applicability to actual care situation.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.77-95
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• 2006

The present study was conducted to examine the degree of variation in length-of-stay (LOS) among health care institutions participating in 17 diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) payment system and to find out hospital characteristics affecting the variation. Electronic medical claims data for treatments of severity classification '0' of 17 DRGs provided for two $years(2003{\sim}2004)$ were collected. For each DRG, the degree of variation in average LOS among health care institutions were analyzed using the random effect model. For DRGs showing significant differences in LOS, multiple regression analyses were performed to find out factors associated with LOS. Significant variations in LOS were observed 9 DRGs including unilateral/bilateral lens procedures, adult/child tonsilectomy, other anal procedures, bilateral adult/child herniorraphy, unilateral child herniorraphy, and hysterectomy, and hysterectomy using laparoscopic procedure. Among the 9 DRGs, five DRGs were selected to investigate the factors explaining for the variation. It was observed that the location of institution was significant predictors for all five DRGs. Within the same DRGs, LOS was significantly shorter among the institutions located in Seoul than those in other areas. As compared to clinics, hospitals and general hospitals/tertiary care institutions showed significantly longer LOS for DRGs of lens procedures, tonsilectomy, and other anal procedures. It is recommended that the institutions located in other than Seoul area benchmark the strategies of the institution in Seoul in efficiently managing LOS. Also, significant variation within the same severity classification such as other anal procedures implies the imminent need for improvement of patient classification system.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.199-200
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• 2001

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.121-147
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• 2004

Since the pilot program for a DRG-based prospective payment system was introduced in 1997, the performance of KDRGs has been one of hotly debated issues. The objectives of this study are to refine the classification algorithm of the KDRGs and to assess the improvement achieved by the refinement. The U.S. Medicare DRGs version 17.0 and the Australian Refined DRGs version 4.1 were reviewed to identify areas of possible impro-vement. Refined changes in the classification and result of date analyses were submitted to a panel of 48 physicians for their reviews and suggestions. The refinement was evaluated by the variance reduction in resource utilization achieved by the KDRG The database of 2,182,168 claims submitted to the Health Insurance Review Agency during 2002 was used for evaluation. As the result of the refinement, three new MDCs were introduced and the number of ADEGs increased from 332 to 674. Various age splits and two to four levels of severity classification for secondary diagnoses were introduced as well. A total of 1,817 groups were defined in the refined KDRGs. The variance reduction for charges of all patients increased from 48.2％ to 53.6％ by the refinement, and from 65.6％ to 73.1％ for non-outlier patients. The r-square for length of stays of all patients was increased from 28.3％ to 32.6％, and from 40.4％ to 44.9％ for non-outlier patients. These results indicated a significant improvement in the classification accuracy of the KDRG system.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.11-38
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• 2012

The Supreme Court stand in the position in specific lawsuit that it doesn't allow the discretionary not covered service, but recently in revocation suit of fine disposal that is imposed on medical fee of leukemia patient, it altered the existing adjudgement and admitted the discretionary not covered service exceptionally. It put forward the allowable condition roughly in that case. According as this alteration, it has become more important to embody the allowance conditions of exceptions. The Supreme Court presented three things, which are procedural condition, medical condition and subscriber's agreement. Concerning procedural condition, several present conciliation procedures are as follows: medical care benefit arret request, relative value conciliation etc, prior request on anti-cancer drug among chemicals which exceed acceptance criteria, request of non benefit object on common drugs. To be granted the existence of those system, there should be no obstacle to use that. Even if it were so, we should take circumstances into consideration; individual situation is unescapable concerning substance and urgency of the discretionary not covered service, process of the procedure, time required etc. Regarding medical condition, safety and effectiveness will be verified through evaluation procedures of new medical skill. About the necessity, the Supreme Court made clear through a sentence that it allow the discretionary not covered service, in case that needs to treat a patient out of the standard of medical benefit. Strict interpretation is right and it answer the purpose of the sentence that the supreme court permit the discretionary not covered service, exceptionally. We need to differentiate medical necessity and medical validity. Subscriber's agreement should holds true if it entails full explanation, and if it is preliminary, explicit and individual. On this account, it should be difficult to admit that someone agree effectively when he call for the affirmation that he is recipient of medical care. Reasonable expense needs to be a part of review whether the agreement is valid. Meanwhile If we adjust system of medical expense and eventually reorganize a fee for consultation payment system (Fee-for-service controlled by item to DRG (Diagnosis Related Groups)), controversial area of the discretionary not covered service will be decreased and that will guarantee the discretion of the doctor.