• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.17-39
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• 2005

Social solidarity, equity in financing, and efficiency in administration have been core issues in the development of Korean health insurance reformation since 1988. This study is to investigate the trend of administrative cost in Korean National Health Insurance from various aspects. For the analysis of administrative cost, the expenditures of each insurance society and the National Health Insurance Corporation are divided into 4 items of (1) insurance benefit, (2) administrative cost, (3) an agency provision accounts, (4) other expenses, and then they are reorganized. The analyses based on 5 types of the health insurance administrative cost showed that efficiency in administration has been improved generally. We, however, should consider qualitative aspects such as customer's satisfaction with health insurance administration, prompt service, control of unjust expenditure (unjust claims), and provision of medical service including health consultation in assessing efficiency of administration. And, in order to connect the administrative costs of health insurance with efficiency, we need to give a fundamentally new definition, which can contain elaborateness of expenditure in details including the structure and evaluation method of administrative costs. It may be necessary to develop new indicators or analyzing methods hereafter.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.17-40
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• 2006

With the prospect of rapidly growing health insurance expenditures, particularly spending for ambulatory care, the introduction of a case-based payment method is discussed as an alternative to the current fee-for-service based method. A system to measure case mixes of providers is a core component of such payment systems. The objective of this study were to develop a classification system for ambulatory care, Korean Ambulatory Patient Group (KAPG) based on the U.S. APG version 2.0 and to evaluate the classification accuracy of the system. A database of 64,258,386 records was constructed from insurance claims submitted to the Health Insurance Review Agency (HIRA) during three months from August 2002. A total of 41,347,307 records with a single visit was used for the development and 7% random sample of the database was used for the evaluation. Additional groups were defined to include both physician and hospital fees in the classification, age splits were added to classify the entire population as well as the population older than 65, and the definition of medical groups used by the HIRA was adopted. The variance reduction in charges achieved by KAPGs was computed to evaluate the accuracy of classification. A total of 474 KAPGs was defined compare to 290 groups in the U.S. APG. The variance reduction for charges of all visits ranged from 20% to 37% depending on the type of provider, and ranged from 22% to 42% for non-outliers, that were better than those achieved by the system currently used by the .HIRA for its internal review purpose. Although further study is required to improve the classification for complicated care in larger hospitals, the results indicated that KAPGs could be used for better management of costs for ambulatory care.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.215-230
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• 2005

The study was intended to investigate how dentists in private dental clinic thought on the present claim and review of dental insurance to reflect it in future establishing dental insurance policies. 1,465 dentists who were running own dental clinic in Pusan Metropolitan City and the south part of Kyungsang province were surveyed in February, 2004. A total of 406 copies of finished questionnaire were finally retrieved and analyzed. The findings are as follows. 1. About insurance claim affairs : Most of the subject of insurance claim was by dentist himself or dental hygienist(nurse). Agency claiming was carried under 20% of total insurance claim. 2. The degree of attendance on insurance lecture : The degree of attendance on insurance lecture was relatively low. 3. Filing a protest against insurance claim : Filing a protest against insurance claim was reavealed about half-and-half for "have been" or "have not been". 4. Private clinic dentist,s opinion about the regulations affecting review of dental insurance : Private clinic dentists opinion about current guide for insurance review of dental fee was“the guidance is difficult and unfair cutback of claim fee may be carried”. 5. The affairs about health insurance review agency : About 70% of private clinic dentists have dissatisfaction on health insurance review agency. 6. Standpoint of private clinic dentists about issuance of receipt for dental fee : About 70% of private clinic dentist have an difficulty in issuance of receipt for dental fee. 7. The affairs about change insurance noncoverage treatment to insurance coverage treatment : Most of private clinic dentists hoped that insurance coverage about full mouth scaling, pit and fissure sealant, fluoride application. But they do not hoped that insurance coverage about geriatric denture, prothodontic treatment except precious metal, photopolymerization resin treatment.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.771-783
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aimed to identify methods that help medical consumers to be aware of relevant information regarding changes in dental health insurance policy. Methods: The following results were obtained from a survey regarding awareness and satisfaction with dental health insurance policy among the general public aged 20 years or older in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and other areas from August 1, 2017 to August 23, 2017. Results: The correlation between adults' awareness of and satisfaction with dental health insurance was 0.471, where satisfaction with dental health insurance was enhanced with increasing awareness of dental health insurance (p<0.001). Factors that significantly affected awareness of dental health insurance were marriage (married p<0.05), medical service (dental university hospital, p<0.01), and satisfaction with dental health insurance (p<0.001); these factors explained 29.2% of the variance. Factors that significantly affected satisfaction with dental health insurance were final education (high school graduation, p<0.05), medical service (dental hospital, p<0.05), and awareness of dental health insurance (p<0.001); these factors explained 27.8% of the variance. Conclusions: Importantly, awareness of the government's operation of dental health insurance and the benefits of such dental health insurance were low, suggesting that the government and national health insurance agency should improve the level of transparency in dental health insurance operations and continuously promote dental health insurance benefits to the public.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2006

Objectives : Recently, the total medical expenses of the korean oriental medical service in national health insurance is on the increase every year. Herbal medicines are one of the major methods of the medical treatment. But the expenses of these herbal preparations that can receive benefits from insurance system are decreasing. Methods : In this research, we obtained statistical data of the benefit states of herbal preparations in herbal heath insurance during year 2001-2003 from Health Insurance Review Agency. We analyzed top twenty main diseases in herbal health insurance and mainly used prescription in these diseases. Results : There were wide differences in the application of prescriptions among diseases. For example, musculoskeletal diseases occupied an important position and Ojucksan took more than 50 percentage. Conclusion : We hope that this study could be a basic data for improving the benefit system of herbal health insurance and further studies should be carried out subsequently.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.73-94
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• 2006

This study was carried out to show how the Analytic Hierarchy Process technique could be used in setting the priority among selected diseases to increase the range of health insurance benefit. Thirty experts, including doctors (group1), experts for preventive medicine or public health(group2), and representatives of the insured(group 3), participated in the study panel that is conducted for priority setting. They were asked to evaluate the priorities among 6 selected criteria and then 42 selected diseases. The results were as follows; First, representatives of the insured think that the magnitude of out-of-pocket payment should have high priority while doctors think that effectiveness of treatment should have high priority. Second, all experts think that catastrophic diseases such as malignant neoplasm, major heart disease, and cerebral vascular disease should have high priority in health insurance coverage even though there is little difference among groups. These results can be useful to establish a systematic strategy for expanding health insurance benefit package.

• 한국노년학
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.467-485
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• 2012

National Health Insurance Corporation initiated Home and Community Long-term care Agency Quality Assessment(HCLA-QA) program in 2010. This study aims to explore long-term care agencies' perceptions and attitudes toward HCLA-QA program, focused on the home-visit care agencies. Total 473 agencies completed the questionnaires(response rate 13.6%), using the e-mail and fax survey methods with high-capacity web-fax server of NHIC. On the results of this study, we found the agencies' different perceptions and attitudes on HCLA-QA program according to their quality ratings as QA results. Compared to the agencies with low quality ratings, the agencies with high quality ratings tend to have more time for preparation, better understandings about HCLA-QA program, more positive perceptions that quality indicators generally are valid, and more affirmative attitudes that the notifications of QA results are helpful for agencies. Our findings can be very useful for establishing strategies for improving the HCLA-QA program. The policy makers, the insurer, and the agencies need to consider the opinions of the agencies with high quality ratings as well as the ones with low quality ratings.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.414-425
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• 2024

Objective: This study aims to explore the opinions on the insurance coverage of artificial intelligence (AI), as categorized based on the distinct value elements offered by AI, with a specific focus on patient-centered outcomes (PCOs). PCOs are distinguished from traditional clinical outcomes and focus on patient-reported experiences and values such as quality of life, functionality, well-being, physical or emotional status, and convenience. Materials and Methods: We classified the value elements provided by AI into four dimensions: clinical outcomes, economic aspects, organizational aspects, and non-clinical PCOs. The survey comprised three sections: 1) experiences with PCOs in evaluating AI, 2) opinions on the coverage of AI by the National Health Insurance of the Republic of Korea when AI demonstrated benefits across the four value elements, and 3) respondent characteristics. The opinions regarding AI insurance coverage were assessed dichotomously and semi-quantitatively: non-approval (0) vs. approval (on a 1-10 weight scale, with 10 indicating the strongest approval). The survey was conducted from July 4 to 26, 2023, using a web-based method. Responses to PCOs and other value elements were compared. Results: Among 200 respondents, 44 (22%) were patients/patient representatives, 64 (32%) were industry/developers, 60 (30%) were medical practitioners/doctors, and 32 (16%) were government health personnel. The level of experience with PCOs regarding AI was low, with only 7% (14/200) having direct experience and 10% (20/200) having any experience (either direct or indirect). The approval rate for insurance coverage for PCOs was 74% (148/200), significantly lower than the corresponding rates for other value elements (82.5%-93.5%; P ≤ 0.034). The approval strength was significantly lower for PCOs, with a mean weight ± standard deviation of 5.1 ± 3.5, compared to other value elements (P ≤ 0.036). Conclusion: There is currently limited demand for insurance coverage for AI that demonstrates benefits in terms of non-clinical PCOs.

• 대한임상약리학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.25-25
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• 2003

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.9-35
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• 2007

The Health care program in Korea has now been systemized after 30 years of declaring the inauguration of the national health insurance system by the current government. The national health care covering all Korean citizens was achieved after 12 years of implementing the national health insurance and the health care program since 1977. Hundreds of multiple operational agencies managing the insured individually had undergone the amalgamation process from 1998 to 2000, and had been restructured as one agency, the National Health Insurance Corporation. In 2003, the community/area based financial management was also merged together with the employment based financial management. The National health care system of Korea offer various merits, compared with that of other countries, such as health care provision covering all Koreans, low insurance premium, accessibility of medical services/facilities etc. However, there are still some weak features which need to be addressed for improvement; below expectation insurance cover system, mistrust on the medical services, low medical charges resulted from excessive restrictions, and unstable financial status of the national health insurance etc. Therefore, the National health care system should continue to evolve to re-establish itself as more effective national health care system by further strengthening its merits, and by improving its weaknesses; with adopting the positive system to optimize the costs of prescribed medicines/drugs, applying simpler insurance coverage system to calculate the optimum medical charges, promoting private medical insurances, and increasing insurance premium etc.