• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.257-268
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• 2005

It is recently suggested in Korea that Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) is an alternative plan of Korean Dental Fee Schedule which has been operated on a fee-for-service basis since the introduction of the national health insurance program in 1977. RBRVS applicable to diagnosis and treatment for temporomandibular disorders (TMD), a common cause of orofacial pain, is needed to be estimated in Korea and the establishment of the standard terminology of dental procedures for TMD should be preceded. The purposes of this study were to develop a new classification system of health care service items for TMD and to investigate time needed for each item, which enables RBRVS to be estimated prior to establishment the payment system of health care services for TMD. The dental service items for TMD in this study were categorized through Delphi process which 10 TMD specialists were participated in and the time needed for each service item was investigated by work sampling and time study method with a stopwatch. The results of this study demonstrated the new classification system of dental services for TMD comprising 151 service items and exhibited the average time for each items ranging from 7.22 min for cold laser therapy to 171.71 min for direct fabrication of anterior repositioning splint. Conclusively, it is suggested that the classification system for TMD developed in this study, considering specific characteristics on basis of resources for health care service of dental procedures, should be helpful to estimate payment level for each service item.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.266-274
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• 2015

The price for health service are decided by very complicated process because many of factors are related with them. The RBRVS(resource-based relative value scale) were used to calculate the Korean health service fees including dental fees. This study aimed to compare dental fees of Korea with other countries, such as Japan, Germany, and the US for evaluating the adequacy. Dental fees were categorized as oral evaluation and imaging, dental treatment including restorative, periodontal, and surgical work, and preventive treatment and compared by each country. The official documents about dental fees were collected from Korea, Japan, Germany, and the US. Each fee was presented as their own currency at first. Then they were converted into Korean won (KRW) by applying the market exchange rates at a specific point of time. Finally the fees were adjusted by purchasing power parities (PPPs) which equalize the different currencies. In general, the level of Korean fees were markedly low compared to those of Japan, Germany, and the US. German fees were similar or higher than that of Japan, and the US. The Korean fees were lower than three other countries 1.2~4.1 times for oral evaluation and 2.2~7.3 times lower for panoramic radiography. The endodontic fees of Japan, Germany, and the US were higher 1.8~15.3 times and 4.0~35.9 times for the deciduous teeth extraction compared to the Korean. In Japan the prophylaxis was 3.2 times more priced than the Korean fee. Exceptionally, the fees for re-evaluation, amalgam filling, and scaling were lower priced in Japan than other countries. This study has limitations on the items in definition and contents of dental practices units which were not exactly comparable and differently determined by countries. However, this study is meaningful because it surveyed the price levels to compare four different countries and then applied PPPs adjustment. This finding can be used to develop the dental RBRVs of Korean national health insurance and will contribute to improving the payment systems of health care.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.28 no.3 s.51
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• pp.623-639
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• 1995

We have never seen any method to cope basically with complicated situation and problems around medical reimbursement rates here in Korea since 1977 witnessed by the beginning of medical insurance. By the way researchers concerned are beginning to propose some kinds of innovative and detailed ideas to government these days. They are Diagnosis-related group(DRG) and Resource-based .elative value scale(RBRVS). In the light of this situation it is so encouraging that our government can come up with that and move. In case of RBRVS research we have already been reaching even to the level of reviewing and revising methodology for its further development after naive pilot study on internal medicine and general surgery last year. However there might be something different conditions between USA and Korea to apply the same Dr. Hsiao's method and it must be vital to check so called' total work approach' compared with 'intra-service work approach' before expanding to the whole medical fields. According to the' Intra-service approach', the physician's work is supposed to be divided into three sub-works by the name of intraservice work, pre, and post service work. These sub-works, again should be merged together to be the pre-postwork subset through some statistical methods of the estimation process applied by Dr. Hsiao's methodology in RBRVS development later on. But in this paper that estimation process was not taken because we could have real values for all of those surveyed items related to just one specialty, OB & GY. Instead, We used some statistical comparison procedures relevant to demographic characteristics, reliability & validity and correlation analysis with American RVU(Relative value unit) between the total work and merged total work from intraservice work approach. The unit of analysis was individual physicians of OB & GY and 300 physicians were selected for each approach through statistical sampling method based on national population of OB & GY physicians in Korea. And also with the thankful help of Advisory Committee under Korean Association of OB & GY, questionnaires were made and mailed to the subjects, two times. As a result there were not any statistically significant differences in demographic characteristics between the two approaches except for the variable 'Response time for the questionnaires', but in other sections of comparisons, response rate, representative values, reliability & validity test, correlation analysis with American RVU, all showed 'Total approach' was not only more rational and statistically meaningful than 'Intra-service approach' but also had considerable merits. But we are not absolutely sure about this paper's robustness. Because of some limitations, we'd rather like to suggest further researches should be followed. In that sense the first thing would be a research for the influence of doctor's characteristics, especially 'frequency' on the rating of work and the way to define total work more clearly.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.82 no.2
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• pp.176-187
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• 1993

Based on the analysis of ecomorphological characters for 84 tree and shrub species, climax indices were estimated so as to interpret the position of the successional sere for the species in the natural deciduous forest. Nineteen ecomorphological characters, considered to be associated with successional gradient in the forest, were selected for the study. One of 2 to 4 steps per character for each species was given on a standardized scale of increasing climaxness, and the index was computed by percent of the sum of the scoring values for total score. Calculated mean value of 54.2 for all indices. Carpinus laxiflora had the highest index value of 83.3, and Populus davidiana recorded the lowest of 18.8. The most climax group, greater than 70 of the index, contained only 9 species, intermediate group, between 40 to 70 of the index, had 58 species, and the most pioneer group, less than 40 of the index comprised 17 species. The result has noticed that the large number of species would take advantage of most diverse resource and niche in the intermediate stage of the sere in the forest. The three components, i.e., light absorption, reproduction, and wood quality were used as axes for a 3-dimensional projection of the relative position for 44 species by principal component analysis. Along the similar ecomorphological characters, four recognized species group were classified by cluster analysis. The distribution pattern of plant families on the index gradient showed that the Betulaceae and Aceraceae had the widest seral amplitude, and the Salicaceae was a family typified as pioneer. There were no families specializing entirely with climax niche.