• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.30-56
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• 2005

This paper used two threshold approaches to measure the equity in urban households' out-of-pocket payments for health care from 1997 to 2002, which developed by Wagstaff and van Doorslaer. One approach used catastrophic health expenditure, which means that payments exceed a 'pre-specified proportion' of total consumption expenditures or ability to pay and the other used impoverishment that they did not drive households into poverty. Indicies for 'catastrophic expenditure' captured intensity as well as its incidence and also the degree of which catastrophic payments occur disproportionately among poor households. Measure of poverty impact also captured both intensity and incidence. The methods applied with data on out-of-pocket payments from the Urban Household Expenditure Survey Incidence and intensity of catastrophic payments - both in terms of total household consumption as well as ability to pay - increased between 1997 and 2002, and that both incidence and intensity of 'catastrophic expenditure' became less concentrated among the poor, but more concentrated in 2001 than in 1997. The incidence and intensity of the poverty impact of out-of-pocket payments increased between 1997 and 2002. Health security system may not have provided financial protection against catastrophic health expenditure to low-income households, because of high user fee policy not considering income level. The policies alleviating catastrophic health payments among the poor need to be more developed, and two threshold approaches further evaluated on our policy context.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.61-73
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• 2017

In the Health Insurance System of South Korea, patients must pay high out-of-pocket expenditures for the medical service by uninsured medical benefits. So, the government implemented a policy to relieve the burdens of patients by lowering the uninsured selective-medical treatment costs in August, 2014. This study investigate the policy effects of selective-medical treatment(SMT) on the medical service's usage and cost with severe lung cancer patients. The patients are selected in one university hospital(with 1,000 beds), between one year before and after policy implementation. The study find that the usages of outpatient(visit number) and inpatient (length of stay) are not changed by statistically significant. It means that there are no effect in medical service behavior between before and after the policy. In medical expenses, outpatients decreased in their out-of-pocket payments by policy, but total medical expenses and insured medical benefits is not changed, because of the increased another medical insurance fees. For inpatient, although the SMT costs are statistically significant decrease, the total out-of-pocket payments and insured medical expenses are not changed statistically significant. Those findings show that the political decision making about SMT made lowing the selective-medical expenses, but total insured cost and patient's out-of pocket money were not changed by the new increased medical insurance fees. It means that the policy about SMT gave no particular benefit for patients. So, it need another benefit plans to lower the medical expenses of severe lung cancer patients with a high medical service usage and much total medical expense.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.139-151
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• 2007

This paper evaluated the benefits of the National Health Insurance(NHI) and suggested the necessity of extending some oriental medical services into the benefits schedule in the NHI. Comparing the rate of public financing in national health expenditure in OECD countries and measuring out-of-pocket payments in total medical cost showed the level of insurance payments to total medical cost is approximately $50%{\sim}60%$ in Korea, which is quite insufficient to pay household medical expenses, although the NHI covers the whole population. A few of consumers' priority surveys for medical needs suggested herb medicine, muscle treatment, and manufactured herb medicine be included in the list of the NHI benefits, based on efficiency and equity criteria. It was estimated that the NHI can afford to cover these three items of oriental medical services.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.393-400
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• 2017

Objectives: To relieve the financial burden faced by households, the Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) system introduced a "copayment ceiling," which evolved into a differential ceiling in 2009, with the copayment ceiling depending on patients' income. This study aimed to examine the effect of the differential copayment ceiling on financial protection and healthcare utilization, particularly focusing on whether its effects varied across different income groups. Methods: This study obtained data from the Korea Health Panel. The number of households included in the analysis was 6555 in 2008, 5859 in 2009, 5539 in 2010, and 5372 in 2011. To assess the effects of the differential copayment ceiling on utilization, out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, and catastrophic payments, various random-effects models were applied. Utilization was measured as treatment days, while catastrophic payments were defined as OOP payments exceeding 10% of household income. Among the right-hand side variables were the interaction terms of the new policy with income levels, as well as a set of household characteristics. Results: The differential copayment ceiling contributed to increased utilization regardless of income levels both in all patients and in cancer patients. However, the new policy did not seem to reduce significantly the incidence of catastrophic payments among cancer patients, and even increased the incidence among all patients. Conclusions: The limited effect of the differential ceiling can be attributed to a high proportion of direct payments for services not covered by the NHI, as well as the relatively small number of households benefiting from the differential ceilings; these considerations warrant a better policy design.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.6985-6989
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• 2013

Background: This study aimed to examine out-of-pocket expenditure for cancer treatments of hospitalized patients and to analyze changing patterns over time. Materials and Methods: This study examined data of all cancer patients receiving inpatient care from two tertiary hospitals from January 2003 to December 2010. Medical expenditures per admission were calculated and classified into those covered and uncovered by the Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) and co-payment. Results: The medical expenditure per admission increased slowly from 3,455 thousand Korean won (KRW) to 4,068 thousand KRW. While expenditures covered by the NHI have increased annually, co-payments have generally decreased. The out-of-pocket expenditure ratio, which means the proportion of uncovered expenditure and co-payment among total medical expenditure dropped sharply from 2005 to 2007 and was maintained at a similar level after 2007. Medical expenditures, NHI coverage, and the out-of-pocket expenditure ratio differed across cancer types. Conclusions: It is necessary to continually monitor the expenditure of uncovered services by the NHI, and to provide policies to reduce this economic burden. In addition, an individual approach considering cancer type-specific characteristics and medical utilization should be provided.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.139-148
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate family caregivers' opinions about out-of-pocket payment for long-term care (LTC) facilities, and find the differences in the opinions for family caregivers of all different levels of income. Methods: We used the data of the study on out-of-pocket payment in national long-term care insurance, including 1,552 family caregivers with the elderly in long-term care facilities. Results: The average out-of-pocket payment per month was 511,635 Korean won and distributed from 230,750 to 1,365,570 Korean won. The amount of out-of-pocket payment might be affected by not co-payment but the cost of non-covered service. There were differences in them for family caregivers of all different levels of income. Opinions were surveyed about 5 issues. By levels of income, there were differences in their opinions about 3 issues, the financial burden on LTC, the necessity of reducing out-of-pocket payments, and to be willing to pay more for a high quality service. But there were not different opinions about the interruption of LTC service and staying with LTC facilities. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the range of out-of-pocket payment for LTC facility is wide and it can be a burden to lower income group. It should be to prepare the policies to ease the financial burden and support the appropriate LTC use.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.342-356
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• 2019

Background: The objectives of the study are to find out the effect of the implementing reform in three Central Asian countries, identify its impact on health status and health care delivery systems. This study address to identify strong and weak points of the health systems and provide a recommendation for further health care organization. Methods: A comparative analysis was conducted to evaluate the effects of implemented policy on health care system efficiency and equity. Secondary data were collected on selected health indicators using information from the World Health Organization Global Health Expenditure Database, European Health Information Platform, and World Bank Open Data. Results: In terms of population status, countries achieved relatively good results. Infant mortality and under-5 mortality rate decreased in all countries; also, life expectancy increased, and it was more than 70 years. Regulations of the health systems are still highly centralized, and the Ministry of Health is the main organ responsible for national health policy developing and implementation. Among the three countries, only Kyrgyzstan was successful in introducing a national health system. Distribution of health expenditure between public expenditure and out-of-pocket payments was decreased, and out-of-pocket payments were less the 50% of total health expenditure in all countries, in 2014. Conclusion: After independent, all three countries implemented a certain number of the policy reform, mostly it was directed to move away from the old the Soviet system. Subsequent reform should be focused on evidence-based decision making and strengthening of primary health care in terms of new public health concepts.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.374-378
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• 2019

After the announcement of Moon Jae-in Government's plan (Moon's Care) for Benefit Expansion in National Health Insurance in August 2017, it is necessary to monitor the effects of the policy, especially household out-of-pocket payments (OOP). This paper aims to observe the current status and trend of OOP in Korea. Current health expenditure (CHE) was 144.4 trillion won in 2018, which accounts for 8.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) increased 9.7% from the previous year. Although GDP's share of CHE has been close to the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the public fund's share was 59.8% of the total in 2018, which was lower than the OECD average of 73.5%. OOP's share was 32.9% in 2018, which decreased from 37.4% in 2008. The share of OOP of non-covered services was 20.0% in 2018, which decreased from 22.9% in 2008. The share of cost-sharing with third-party payers was 12.9% in 2018, which decreased from 14.5% in 2008. The OOP of non-covered services was significantly decreased in hospital and inpatient curative care, but the OOP of non-covered services was significantly increased in the medical clinic. The effect of Moon's Care was not showed in OOP through the results of 2017 and 2018, but further monitoring is needed because the Moon's Care is progressing and the observational period is short.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.288-302
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• 2019

Background: The one-person households (OPH) are rapidly increasing and vulnerable to socioeconomic and health problems. Because it is predicted to be inequitable to health care utilization, we would like to find out about the equity of health care utilization of the OPH by comparison with the multi-person households (MPH). Methods: This study followed the theoretical framework of Wagstaff and van Doorslaer (2000), O'Donnell and his colleagues (2008), where the horizontal inequity index is the difference between the concentration indices of actual health care utilization and health care needs. This study employed the 9th Korea Health Panel survey, and a total of 10,807 cases were analyzed. Health care needs were measured by age, sex, subjective health status, chronic disease count, Charlson's Comorbidity Index, limitation of activities, and disability. Results: Compared with the MPH, there were pro-poor inequities in hospitalization, emergency utilization, hospitalization out-of-pocket payments, and pro-rich inequities in outpatient out-of-pocket payments for the OPH. The decomposition of the concentration index revealed that chronic disease count made the largest contribution to socioeconomic inequality in outpatient utilization. Age, health insurance, economic activities, and subjective health status also proved more important contributors to inequality. The variables contributing to the hospitalization and emergency utilization inequity were age, education, Charlson's Comorbidity Index, marital status, and income. Conclusion: Because the OPH was more vulnerable to health problems than the MPH and there were pro-poor inequities in medical utilization, hospitalization, and emergency costs, it is necessary to develop a policy that can correct and improve the portion of high contribution to medical utilization of the OPH.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.228-241
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• 2014

Background: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of health insurance coverage expansion for cancer patients on equity in health care utilization and catastrophic expenditure. Methods: To analyze the causal relationship between the policy to expand benefit coverage and the change in health care utilization and out-of-pocket payments of cancer patients, this study employed a difference-in-differences (DID) method. In the DID model, the change in health care utilization, such as health care expenditure, visit days and length of stay, of cancer patients was compared with that of liver disease patients, using Korea Health Panel Data in 2009 and 2010. Results: The policy of reducing cost sharing from 10% to 5% for cancer patients did not have significant effects on equity in health care utilization. The results of this study were different from those of the previous study that showed that the reduction of cost sharing from 20% to 10% significantly improved the equity in health care utilization of cancer patients. In addition, the result of catastrophic expenditures analysis showed the policy did not change the probability of catastrophic expenditures. Conclusion: The results of this study imply that payment for non-covered services account for high out-of-pocket payments, and the reduction in cost sharing for covered services alone may have a limited effect on total financial burden on patients.