• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2004

Objectives : To evaluate the cost and proportion of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) in the total healthcare costs among the elderly in the last 6 months of life. Methods : The care-giving families of 301 persons older than 65 years, who died between July 1st and December 31st of 2001, and were also registered in Self-Employed Health Insurance Programs in Seoul, were interviewed. Results : The cost of CAM was 1.09 million Won, which as a proportion of the total healthcare cost was 38.1%. The elderly aged between 65 and 69 year-old, male, living with their spouse, Buddhist and having cancers had higher CAM costs in an ANOVA and simple regression analysis. After controlling of various factors, age was the only significant factor associated with the cost of CAM. The elderly above 80 years old, female, bereaved and Buddhist had higher proportional CAM costs, and the elderly having cancers or cardiovascular diseases had lower proportional CAM costs in an ANOVA and simple regression analysis. After adjusting for various factors, the elderly above 85 years old, female and Buddhist had higher proportional CAM costs, and the elderly having cancers had lower proportional CAM costs. Conclusion : The very old and Buddhist, and/or the ill with no clear diagnosis, may depend more on CAM. Further research will be needed on the meaning and impact of CAM and their costs to public health and the total healthcare system.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.407-409
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• 2012

The ACTION (Asean CosTs In ONcology) Study will be one of the largest observational studies of the burden of cancer ever conducted in Asia. The study will involve 10,000 newly diagnosed patients with cancer and will be carried out across eight low- and middle income countries within the ASEAN region (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Laos and the Philippines). Patients will be interviewed three times over 12 months to assess their health, use of health care services, out of pocket costs related to their illness, social and quality of life issues. The project is a collaboration between the George Institute for Global Health, the ASEAN Foundation and Roche. The aim of the study is to assess the health and socioeconomic impact of cancer on patients in ASEAN communities, and the factors that may impact on these outcomes.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.89-99
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• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the effects of visiting nursing services in long-term care (LTC) insurance on changes in health status and physical functions among the elderly. Methods: We analyzed survey data on the living status and welfare needs of the elderly from 2008 and 2011 using the difference-in-difference method with propensity score matching. Results: The subjects were 76 elders including 38 visiting nursing service users(intervention group) and 38 home-based LTC service users (control group). Results from DID analysis confirmed that the subjective health status level of the intervention group was 2.2 points higher (p=.044) and the depression level was 0.3 point lower (p=.039) than the control group. In addition, the intervention group's ADL score was 1.9 (p=.027) and IADL 3.9 (p=.030), showing that their health was deteriorated less. Conclusion: Visiting nursing service in LTC insurance was associated with delayed deterioration of subjective health status, depression, ADL and IADL. These findings suggest the need of rebuilding visiting nursing service programs focusing on prevention services, which will be more contributive to elderly health care and the reduction of social costs.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2005

The aim of this study was to compare medical cost of hospice care and that of conventional care during the last year of life, and identify factors that influenced the cost. From January to August 2003 592 terminal cancer patients receiving care from 5 hospice care units and 2 hospice care teams in general hospitals were enrolled to case group. Two hundreds and seventy two terminal cancer patients receiving conventional care from 7 general hospitals were enrolled to hospital-based control group, and 1,636 terminal cancer patients from 122 general hospitals located in same regions with the 7 hospitals were enrolled to community-based control. We used characteristics and medical cost from data of National Health Insurance Cooperation. Total medical cost per beneficiary in cases was about 10 millions won, 14.5 millions in hospital-based controls and 11.1 millions in community-based controls. The hospice care saved $45\%$ over the last year of life compared with hospital-based controls (p<0.0001). Saving of inpatient cost account for approximately $80\%$ of saving per beneficiary. Hospice care saved $29\%$ of medical cost per hospitalization day compared with hospital­based controls and $17\%$ compared with community-based controls (p<0.0001). Multiple regression analyses showed that hospice care significantly saved the medical cost. This study suggest that hospice care save medical cost compared with hospital-based control and community-based control. Most of saving of inpatient cost account for approximately $80\%$ of saving of medical cost.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.15-26
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• 2010

Stroke is a high-risk disease. The future of the medical environment is that the proportion of elderly population is increasing, the average life expectancy is being increased, while the fatal rate of stroke will be low. These situation will due to the financial burden on medical insurance. The most important factor that affects on the medical costs of stroke patients is the length of stay. In this study the mean length of hospital for stroke stay was 21.81days(37.97days for intracerebral hemorrhage, 18.89 days for cerebral infarction). The payment per case of stroke was 6.86 million won(12.6 million won for intracerebral hemorrhage, 5.72 million won for cerebral infarction). The payment per case of intracerebral hemorrhage was 2.2 times more than that of cerebral infarction. The payment in the day of hospitalization was the highest and until the second day medical costs was high. After the third day medical costs tended to decline, after that seemed to show an almost constant level. The length of hospital stay was found to be the most important determinant of inpatient charges for stroke. Accordingly rational management of the length of stay will be beneficial to health care consumers, providers, states.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 1998

Analysis of practice variations has been one of important issues in trying to contain costs as well as to manage quality in health care. This study was conducted to provide statistical model for analysing variations in inpatient costs by type of hospitals. Four K-DRGs including Cesarean section, appendectomy, cataract extraction, and pediatric pneumonia with CC class 0 were selected, and means and dispersions of inpatient procedure and operation costs were simultaneously compared between type of hospitals. The results indicated that joint modelling of means and dispersions by gamma distribution was a very useful analytic tool for identifying factors which might have relationship with variations in inpatient costs. This model can be expanded to test the significance of several independent variables in analysing cost variations. In surgical conditions, means and unit variations of procedure and operation costs showed consistent pattern which was tertiarty hospital, general hospital, and hospital in descending order. Different findings were identified in pediatric pneumonia, from which mean and unit variation of procedure and operation cost was the highest in general hospital. The practical implication of this difference could not be drawn from this study. It will be done by further sophisticated researches. In order to develop health policy for cost containment and quality management in Korea, it is essential to find out manageable factors affecting variations in practice patterns which include characteristics of population, providers, regions, and so on. The statistical model presented in this study will give health services researchers useful insights for future investigations in analysing cost variations.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2006

Purpose: To compare of health inequalities between rural and urban areas in term of health status, health behaviors and medical care utilization by using national-wide data. Method: The data came from the 2000 and 2005 census data, 2004 death certification statistics and 2001 national health and nutrition survey. The health indicators used in this study were mortality, perceived health status, health related behaviors, morbidity, accidents and suicides, mental health-related factors, health care accessibility. Korean rural areas have been experiencing a rapid aging process and there are demographic differences between rural and urban populations. Thus, both of crude rates and age-adjusted rates were compared. Result: Although the degrees decreased after adjustment for age, health inequalities between areas still existed. The people who lived in rural areas suffer from higher mortality, morbidity and unhealthy behavior compared to people in urban areas. Especially, regional health inequalities for women were significant. Health care accessibility in rural areas was also lower and medical indirect costs for rural residents were higher than those of urban residents. Conclusion: To reduce health inequalities between geographical areas, political efforts to tackle health inequalities in the rural areas are required.

• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Health Promotion Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.107-116
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• 1999

.Half of deaths are caused by life-style related problems in developed nations. .Health promotion can improve life-style and health. .Improvements in life-style and health lead to savings in medical care core costs and enhancements in productivity. .Win-Win-Win-Win : Management, Labor, Employees and Government benefit

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.6746-6755
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• 2014

This study examined the effect of long-term care utilization on the health care utilization of Medicaid elderly. The subjects were 5,834 long-term care insurance with the level 1 Medicaid elders, who received either service or non-service. This study examined the impact of long-term care service on the probability of health care utilization and the costs of health care utilization. The total medical cost and inpatient day between 2009-2007 were significant factors affecting long-term care utilization (${\beta}=.29$, p< .001, ${\beta}=.33$, p< .001 ) and this variable explained 22.6% of the total medical cost and 22.4% of the inpatient day. The results showed that non-service in long-term care was associated with an increase in health care utilization. The current long-term care insurance system should place higher priority and more resource allocation on long-term care utilization to increase the efficiency of the insurance system.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.50-61
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• 2015

Advances in healthcare technology and rapid economic growth lead to the increased life expectancy and consequently the size of elderly population. Korea is one of the countries that are rapidly aging. Thus, it is particularly important to prepare for the aging society. Recently, the number of healthcare institutions for the elderly citizens has increased. The purpose of selecting a hospital for the elderly is, in general, maintenance of health rather than improvement of health receiving proper treatment. Unlike choosing a hospital for treatment, customers of a long term care hospital have a different set of factors to consider. Especially, when choosing a long term care hospital, the influence of patient's family is greater than the patient. This study examines the factors they consider for long term care hospital. A total of 198 questionnaires were collected from the families of actual patients of long term care hospitals. Twelve questionnaires were found to be non-usable because of missing and unsatisfactory responses. Consequently, 186 questionnaires were used for the analyses. Findings of this study are as follows. First, seven factors have been identified to consider when choosing a long term care hospital for the elderly. They include convenience of facilities, costs variety of facility programs, service hours, reputation, accessibility, quality of medical staff, medical facilities, and facility size. Second, This study measured both importance and satisfaction with these attributes and analyzed the difference between them. Satisfaction was lower than importance in the categories of convenience of facilities, costs, and programs, and accessibility. On the other hand, satisfaction was higher in terms of service hours, reputation, and quality of medical staff. Finally, the current study found positive impact of accessibility and quality of medical staff on reuse intention of a long term care hospital.