• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.503-513
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• 2006

Purpose: This study focused on analysing costs per home health care nursing visit based on home health care nursing activities in medical institutes. Method: The data was collected in three stages. First, the cost elements of home health care nursing services were collected and 31 home care nurses participated. Second, the workload and caseload of home care nursing activities were measured by the Easley-Storfjell Instrument(1997). Third, the opinions on improving the home health care nursing reimbursement system were collected by a nation-wide mailing survey from a total of 125 home care agencies. Result: The cost of home health care nursing per visit was calculated as 50,626\. This was composed of a basic visiting fee of $35,090{\\}({\fallingdotseq}355$)$ and travel fee of $15,536{\\}({\fallingdotseq}15$)$. The major problems of the home care nursing payment system were the low level of the cost per visit, no distinction between first visit and revisits, and the limitations in health insurance coverage for home health care nursing services. Conclusion: This study's results will contribute as a baseline for establishing policies for improvement of the home health care nursing cost and for applying a community-based visiting nursing service cost.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.475-480
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• 2023

Objectives: This study examined differences in health care spending and characteristics among older adults in Korea by high-cost status (persistently, transiently, and never high-cost). Methods: We identified 1 364 119 older adults using data from the Korean National Insurance Claims Database for 2017-2019. Outcomes included average annual total health care spending and high-cost status for 2017-2019. Linear regression was used to estimate differences in the outcomes while adjusting for individual-level characteristics. Results: Persistently and transiently high-cost older adults had higher health care spending than never high-cost older adults, but the difference in health care spending was greater among persistently high-cost older adults than among transiently high-cost older adults (US$20 437 vs. 5486). Despite demographic and socioeconomic differences between transiently high-cost and never high-cost older adults, the presence of comorbid conditions remained the most significant factor. However, there were no or small differences in the prevalence of comorbid conditions between persistently high-cost and transiently high-cost older adults. Rather, notable differences were observed in socioeconomic status, including disability and receipt of Medical Aid. Conclusions: Medical risk factors contribute to high health care spending to some extent, but social risk factors may be a source of persistent high-cost status among older adults in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.25-52
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• 1993

Variation in the utilization of medical services is a very important issue in cost containment and quality assurance of health care. Practice variation directly affects health care expenditure especially in fee-for-service system, which is the payment system of health insurance in Korea. In addition to cost issue it is generally accepted that variations in medical practice and the cost of inpatient care suggest the possibility of inappropriate quality of care. This study is to closely examine the patterne and degrees of variation in cost structure of inpatient care among types of hospital and individual hospitals in some tracer diseases, and also to inquire into the service items which contribute much to the variation of total medical care cost. Foru common diseases, i.e. Cesarean Section, appendectomy, cataract extraction and pediatric pneumonia, were selected as tracer diseases. In most tracer diseases there were statistically significant differences in total medical care cost among hospitals in same type of hospital as well as among types of hospital(p<0.01). When total medical care cost were subdivided into the types of service, cost of medication and diagnostic examination varied the most prominenly. When the cost of medication were subdivided again, cost of parenteral antibiotics showed the most prominent variation. Of total medical care cost, medication was most contributory to the variation of total medical care cost(58.1~82.3%), and cost of antibiotics was most contributory to the variation of medication cost(63.9~92.2%). The results of study implicated that reducing the variation of medication may plays a significant role in containing the cost of inpatient care. In order to sort out the factors affecting practice variations including drug prescription pattes further researches are required.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2001

Purpose of this study is to compare the cost effectiveness of home care services for the cerebrovascular accident patients by the type of institution. The method is the secondary analysis using the patients' charts. 107 subjects and 1.417 visits were sampled from each type of home care institution such as one hospital based home care center. one KNA home care center, one urban health center, one rural health center and one health care post. Result: There were differences in the functional status of patients and the service contents and frequencies provided by the type of home care institution, The cost per visit for one unit of ADL by the hospital based home care was higher than by the community-based home care. Conclusion: It was suggested that the referral system among the home care institutions would be developed to improve the cost-effectiveness.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.52-57
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to evaluate appropriateness of home health care travel cost. For the evaluation, investigated the operating costs of vehicles used by home care nurses and then were components of home care nurses's annual salaries. Travel costs were then calculated based on actual travel expenses of home health care service. Actual data of 23 hospital-based home care agencies between July, 2002 to December, 2002 were collected for the analysis of the travel costs. The results of this study are : 1) For home visit, 65% of home care agencies turned out to be using only hospital owned cars, and 17.1% be depending purely on home care nurses' cars. On average, 1.9 cars used for home visit. 2) Out of 89 agencies, 23 agencies responded to the travel cost survey. Total maintenance cost of a car per month was 381,457 won. 3) Average per visit personal expenses of home care nurses during travel time turned out to be 7,124won assuming 8 working hours per day, 4 visits per day, and 30 minuets of travel time for each visit. 4) Total home health care travel cost per visit was 12,069 won, which was the sum of actually paid travel cost of 4,945 won and personal expenses during travel time of 7,124. In conclusion. we reckon that current compensation price of home care nurses' travel is inappropriate because total home health care travel costs of 12,069 won per visit turned out to be 2.1 times of currently prevailing standard compensation price of 5,830 per visit.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.6
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• pp.19-32
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to develop of home nursing care classification and home health care costs of the free-standing home nursing care agency. This study was done through 3 steps The First stage, home nursing care classification was identified and classified by literature, review-committee and expert meeting. The second stage, cost elements for home nursing care visit were identified and accounted. That were divided into direct nursing care cost, indirect nursing care cost, management cost and transportation cost. Third stage, total cost of per visit was produced. Data were collected from 810 visits of 120 patients received home dare and from January. 1999 to November, 1999, and analysed with EXCEL program. The obtained results are as follows : 1. Home nursing care classification was consisted of 6 high level classification domain and 10 low level classification domain and 163 home nursing care behavior. 2. The cost of home nursing care per visit was 30,638 won which were direct and indirect nursing care cost(16.305won), management cost(5,255won) and transportation cost (9,098won). In conclusion. Home nursing behavior care classification developed in this study would be used as home health care standard. And the home nursing care costs can be used as a fundamental data for the further development of home health care costs in Korea.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.225-232
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the services and cost of CVA patients in hospital-based home health care and compare the differences of home health care cost by hospital types. Methods: The subjects of this study were 5,756 home care patients with cerebrovascular disease. Data were collected by using home health care medical expense claims from 127 hospitals in 2004. Results: The home care service 'indewelling catheterization' was the highest(19.28%), and then 'nasogastric tube insertion and change(16.72%)', 'bladder irrigation(15.98)', 'wound management(simple dressing)(10.42%)' followed. Average home health care cost per visit was 39,943 won, and the highest 46,058 won in general hospitals and the lowest 33,922 won in tertiary hospitals, so there were statistically significant among the types of hospitals(F=1112.47, p<0.0001). Conclusions: The number of home health care patients has been rapidly growing with the increase of aged population and demand for home care services is rising. So, it could be urgent to develop a reasonable cost reimbursement system for home health services and to expend scopes of the roles of home care specialist nurses. Amid the demand of more detail understanding the present status of home care, our study can be contributed to provide fundamental information of home care in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.145-162
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to understand magnitude and its related factors of user's cost-sharing for non-covered services in long-term care facilities. We corrected data for 1,016 subjects, based on the long-term care benefits cost specification. Eighteen subjects were excluded from the data analysis due to missing data on family care-givers characteristics. Finally, 998 subjects were included in the study. The average cost of non-covered services per month was 209,093 won and distributed from 0 to 1,011,490 won. There was a significant difference by the characteristics of family care-givers and long-term care facilities. The monthly average cost for meal materials per person was 199,181 won(0~558,000), average cost of additional charge caused by using private bed was 232,992 won (50,000~600,000), and costs for haircut and cosmetics were 8,599 won. For the rest, there were various programs costs(93,328 won), diaper and its disposal cost(109,628 won), purchase cost for daily necessaries(24,435 won) and etc. The related factors for the magnitude of non-covered services expenditures were education level of family care-givers, occupancy rate and location of LTC facilities, and the costs of using private bed, haircut and cosmetics, and various programs among non-covered services. These findings suggest that present level range of LTC facilities users' cost-sharing is wide and it is urgent to prepare the standard guideline for cost and level in non-covered services.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.409-418
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the costs and benefits of home nursing care services between public health centers (PHC) and private hospitals. Method: Participants were 105 patients who had received home nursing care services from a private hospital or public health center. From a societal perspective, the researcher identified the costs and benefits of the services using performance data and calculated the net benefit and benefit/cost ratio. Result: The net benefit of the home nursing care service based in the PHC was 165.9 million won and benefit/cost ratio was 2.0, while the net benefit of the home nursing care services by the private hospital was 141.1 million won and benefit/cost ratio was 1.7. Both types of programs were economically validated. Conclusion: Home nursing care services were basically efficient as the results showed a positive net benefit. A cost-benefit analysis indicated that the PHC-based home nursing care services were more efficient than that of the private hospital. With limited human resources and management standards in public health centers, results suggest the need for a more systematic management of the home nursing care service to improve the health of this vulnerable community population.