• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.5-11
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• 2009

Objectives : This study was conducted to estimate the socioeconomic cost of injuries in South Korea. Methods : We matched claims data from national health insurance, automobile insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance(IACI), and mortality data obtained from the national statistical office from 2001 to 2003 by patients unique identifier. Socioeconomic cost included both direct cost and indirect cost: the direct cost was injury-related medical expenditure and the indirect cost included loss of productivity due to healthcare utilization and premature death. Results : The socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea was approximately 1.9% of the GDP from 2001 to 2003. That is, 12.1 trillion KRW(Korean Won) in 2001, 12.3 trillion KRW in 2002, and 13.7 trillion KRW in 2003. In 2003, direct medical costs were 24.6%(3.4 trillion KRW), the costs for loss of productivity by healthcare utilization were 13.0%(1.8 trillion KRW), and the costs for loss of productivity by premature death were 62.4%(8.6 trillion KRW). Conclusions : In this study, the socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea between 2001 and 2003 was estimated by using not only health insurance claims data, but also automobile insurance, IACI claims and mortality data. We conclude that social efforts are required to reduce the socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea, which represented approximately 1.9% of the GDP for the time period specified.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.11-21
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• 1993

Recently the structure of disease is changing its form into chronic disease. Taking into consideration this, the health care system doesn't cope with this tendency. With the health care system for acute disease, it is difficult to decrease medical care cost. At this point, Health education like primary health care can reduce risk factors and possibilities of occurrence of disease. This can cut off the medical insurance finance further more cuts off the rates of insurance cost. This is why health education is the principle part of medical insurance service. Though the law shows health education must be executed in the field of Medical insurance, still it is not enough. In order to carry out health education in the medical insurance organization, the efforts we should make are as follows: 1. Recognize the importance of health education. 2. Set the clear goals in health education. 3. Organize health education system. 4. Train health workers. 5. Systematize health education service. 6. Reform the medical insurance system. 7. Evaluate the effect of health education and practice the model.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.195-205
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• 2019

Background: The food and food service influence the quality of life and the general health condition of older persons living in long-term care (LTC) facilities. Purchasing good food materials is a ground of good food service. In Korea, the residents in LTC facilities should pay for the cost of food materials and ingredients out of their pocket because it is not covered by LTC insurance. This study explored what factors affect the cost of food materials paid by LTC facility residents and which factor affects most. Methods: We used data from the study on out-of-pocket payment on national LTC insurance, which surveyed 1,552 family caregivers of older residents in LTC facilities. We applied conditional multi-level model, of which the first level represents the characteristics of care receivers and caregivers and its second level reflects those of LTC facilities. Results: We found that the facility residents with college-graduated family caregivers paid 11,545 Korean won more than those with less than elementary-graduated ones. However, the income level of family caregivers did not significantly affect the amount of the food material cost of the residents. The residents in privately owned, large, metropolitan-located facilities were likely to pay more than those in other types of facilities. The amount of the food material cost of the residents was mainly decided by the facility level factors rather than the characteristics of care recipients and their family caregivers (intra-class correlation=82%). Conclusion: These findings suggest that it might be effective to design a policy targeting facilities rather than residents in order to manage the cost of food materials of residents in LTC facilities. Setting a standard price for food materials in LTC facilities, like Japan, could be suggested as a feasible policy option. It needs to inform the choice of LTC users by providing comparable food material cost information. The staffing requirement of nutritionist also needs to be reviewed.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.179-194
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• 1991

Despite its universal coverage of health insurance, the rural health insurance program(RHIP) stands at the crossroads in Korea. The RHIP has weaknesses in stability of financing, problems of inequities in the provision of health services and has suffered from high cost of running the program. The author has analyzed these problems from the perspective of health insurance policy and presented several options for improvement. First of all, this study urged the importance of a firm Governmental commitment of RHIP with the 50% subsidization of contributions as the Government had promised, instead of the current 40%. This can be justified from the 20% subsidization by the Government for the contributions of private school teachers and their dependents, who belong to richer segments of the population. Second, various cost containment measures ought to be sought curbing the rising demand for medical through strengthening health education and increasing individual responsibility, and tightening the claim review process. Third, this study requires the Government to run a demonstration project on the introduction of case payment system for primary health care. Fourth introducing an income-related cost sharing scheme is another possibility. Reforming the cost sharing formula for large medical expenditures is recommendable for a beginning. This measure can take the form of tax credit for medical expenditures of the poor. Fifth, the degree of financial adjustment among health insurance plans should be levelled up for enhancing stability of RHIP and social solidarity. Sixth, health policy should be redirected toward development of rural health resources and higher priority should be put on relieving difficulties in access to care. Seventh. the insurance plan owned-hospital needs to be developed or provision of health services in the medically underserved areas, and the need of such facilities is particularly acute for geriatric care, rehabilitation and renal dialysis, etc. Eighth, more generous insurance benefits are required of the elderly who are suffering the most : elimination of the maximum 180 days of benefit period and provision of glasses and artificial dentures, etc. Ninth. the economies of scale principle is working for the operating expenses of regional self-employed insurance plan. Thus, measures should be instituted to pursue an optimum size of health insurance plans. Lastly, excessive dependence on exclusion items is an evil so that some radical remedies are urgently required to cut them.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.175-188
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to confirm the reasons why the medical institutes avoid the traffic accident victims covered by the automobile insurance. For this purpose, a university hospital was sampled to comparatively analyze days of hospitalization, average medical cost per day, ratio of optional medical cost, average cost by injury/age group/department, distribution of MRI photographing, etc., between health insurance and automobile insurance patients. Accordingly, in order to assure automobile patients of a reasonable rights of medical services, it is deemed necessary to arrange a fair system encouraging them reduce the days of their hospitalization as well as a complementary mechanism preventing unnecessary expensive medical services due to the hazard.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.45-57
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• 2010

Background : If different cost efficiency indexes were informed to the same clinic depending on the inclusion or exclusion of pharmacy cost, it may impair the reliability of provider-profiling system. This study aimed to investigate whether the omission of pharmacy cost affects cost-efficiency rankings in medical clinics. Methods : Data for ambulatory care cost at 23,112 medical clinics were collected from the claims database, which was constructed after review by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) of Korea in April 2007. We calculated two types of cost efficiency indexes by inclusion or exclusion of pharmacy cost for a medical clinic. The agreement between the decile rankings of the two indexes was also assessed using the weighted kappa statistic of Landis and Koch. Results : When the cost efficiency index for total cost including pharmacy cost was compared with the index for total cost excluding it, the agreement between the two indexes was only 55%. The agreements between the two indexes were relatively low within specialties which have larger pharmacy volume of total cost and lower correlation between total cost with or without pharmacy cost included than the average level of all the specialties. Conclusion : These results suggest that the omission of pharmacy cost may result in contradictory outcomes that may be confusing to a medical institution and may impair the reliability of provider-profiling systems. It is very important to standardize profiling criteria for the reliability of provider profiling system.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2007

This study is designed to estimate an appropriate level of patient's cost-sharing for oriental medical services in the Korean National Health Insurance. The findings of this study can be summarized as follows: 1) The current co-payment system for oriental medical services does not reflect its cost structure in clinical practice due to inconsistency of cost-sharing plan in the NHI. 2) Both oriental medical institutions and their patients, as a result, are at a relative disadvantage in financial burden, compared with other services. 3) The substantial proportion of patients' cost-sharing depends on the amount of co-payment and the range of medical cost that a flat rate is applied to. 4) The extension of the range doesn't make any substantial decrease in patient's cost-sharing. 5) The fixed amount of co-payment is more sensitive than a range to total variations of patient's cost-sharing. Based on the above, the budget impacts of a new co-payment system were estimated for each co-insurance rate, according to given scenarios. The results range from -59 billion Won (-8.5%) to 16 billion Won(2.3%).

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.291-300
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• 2012

Objectives: We aimed to estimate the annual socioeconomic burden of coronary heart disease (CHD) in Korea in 2005, using the National Health Insurance (NHI) claims data. Methods: A prevalence-based, top-down, cost-of-treatment method was used to assess the direct and indirect costs of CHD (International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision codes of I20-I25), angina pectoris (I20), and myocardial infarction (MI, I21-I23) from a societal perspective. Results: Estimated national spending on CHD in 2005 was $2.52 billion. The majority of the spending was attributable to medical costs (53.3%), followed by productivity loss due to morbidity and premature death (33.6%), transportation (8.1%), and informal caregiver costs (4.9%). While medical cost was the predominant cost attribute in treating angina (74.3% of the total cost), premature death was the largest cost attribute for patients with MI (66.9%). Annual per-capita cost of treating MI, excluding premature death cost, was $3183, which is about 2 times higher than the cost for angina ($1556). Conclusions: The total insurance-covered medical cost ($1.13 billion) of CHD accounted for approximately 6.02% of the total annual NHI expenditure. These findings suggest that the current burden of CHD on society is tremendous and that more effective prevention strategies are required in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.107-117
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• 2015

Background: The purpose of this study is to analyze the cost for the denture treatment in accordance with the government's plan to expand the National Health Insurance coverage for dental prothesis from July 1, 2012. Methods: We developed the draft of classification of the treatment activities based on the existing researches and expert's review and finalized the standard procedures through confirming by Korean Dental Association. We also made the list of input at each stage of treatments. We conducted survey of 100 dental clinics via post from April 4 to May 20 in 2011 and 37 clinics took part in the survey. The unit of cost calculation is the process from the first visit for denture treatment to setting of denture and adjustment. The manufacturing process performed by dental technician was not included in the cost analysis. Results: The process for the complete denture treatment was classified with 10 stages. The partial denture treatment was classified with 8 stages. The treatment time per each denture is about 5.6 hours for complete dentures and about 6.6 hours for partial dentures. The treatment cost were from 591,108 won to 643,913 won for complete denture and from 670,219 won to 738,840 won for partial denture in 2011, depending on the location, type of the clinics and the types of physician's income. Conclusion: This study shows the example of cost analysis for the treatment to set the fee schedule. Measures to get representative and accurate information need to be made.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.23-39
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• 1989

There have been a lot of considerable. discussion and debate surrounding the management model in the health insurance management system and opinions regarding the management operating cost. It is a well known fact that there have always been dissenting opinions and debates surrounding the issue. The management operating cost varies according to the scale of the management organization and component members characteristics of the insurance carrier. Therefore, it is necessary to examine and compare the management operating cost to the simulated management models developed to cover those eligible for the health insurance scheme in this country. Since the management operating cost can vary according to the different models of management, four alternative management models have been established based on the critical evaluation of existing theories concerned, as well as on the basis of the survey results and simulation attempts. The first alternative model is the Unique Insurance Carrier Model(Ⅰ) ; desigened to cover all of the people with no classification of insurance qualifications and finances from the source of contribution of the insured, nationwide. The second is the Management Model of Large-scale District Insurance Carrier(Ⅱ) ; this means the Korean society would be divided into 21 large districts; each having its own insurance carrier that would cover the people in that particular district with no classification of insurance qualifications arid finances as in Model I. The third is the Management Model of Insurance Carrier Divided by Area and Classified with Occupation if Largescale (Ⅲ) ; to serve the self-employed in the 21 districts divided as in Model Ⅱ. It would serve the employees and their dependents by separate insurance carriers in large-scale similar to the area of the district-scale for the self-employed, so that the insurance qualifications and finances would be classified with each of the insurance carriers: The last is the Management Model of the Multi - insurance Carrier (Ⅳ) based on the Si. Gun. Gu area which will cover their own self- employed people in the area with more than 150 additional insurance carriers covering the employees and their dependents. The manpower necessary to provide services to all of the people according to the four models is calculated through simulation trials. It indicates that the Management Model of Large-scale District Insurance Carrier requires the most manpower among the four alternative models. The unit management operating costs per the insured individuals and covered persons are leveled with several intervals based on the insurance recipients. in their characteristics. The interval levels derived from the regression analysis reveal that the larger the scale of the insurance carriers is in the number of those insured and covered. the more the unit management operating cost decreases. significantly. Moreover. the result of the quadratic functional formula also shows the U-shape significantly. The management operating costs derived from the simulated calculation. on the basis of the average salary and related cost per staff- member of the Health Insurance Societies for Occupational Labours and Korean Medical Insurance Corporation for the Official Servants and Private School Teachers in 1987 fiscal year. show that the Model of Multi-insurance Carrier warrants the highest management operating cost. Meanwhile the least expensive management operating cost is the Management Model of Unique Insurance Carrier. Insurance Carrier Divided by Area and Classified with Occupation in Large-scale. and Large-scale District Insurance Carrier. in order. Therefore. it is feasible to select the Unique Insurance Carrier Model among the four alternatives from the viewpoint of the management operating cost and in the sense of the flexibility in promoting the productivity of manpower in the human services field. However. the choice of the management model for health insurance systems and its application should be examined further utilizing the operation research analysis for such areas as the administrative efficiency and factors related to computer cost etc.