• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.61-71
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• 2023

Objectives : This study aimed to investigate the recognition of coverage for Korean medicine treatments in private medical insurance among Korean medicine doctors (KMDs). Methods : Questionnaire reviewed by experts was performed to KMDs who were registered in the Association of Korean Medicine. The survey targeted awareness of private health insurance for Korean medicine, appropriate coverage, cost, and frequency. Results : Data were collected from 932 respondents out of 28,234 Korean medicine doctors. Most KMDs were aware of coverage for Korean medicine in private medical insurance, and they responded that pharmacopuncture and herbal decoction were covered first. KMDs also responded that the coverage should be provided without limited number of times, except herbal medicine. Conclusion : Most KMDs responded that Korean medical private medical insurance was essential. To promote the developing insurance for Korean medicine, survey for public and insurance company will be performed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.322-332
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• 2013

This study investigated the awareness and purchase status of the private dental insurance. Self-reported survey was conducted with patients over the age of twenties who visited dental institutions located in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi Province. The demographic and health related characteristics of respondents were analyzed, and logistic regression was conducted to examine factors affecting the awareness and purchase of private dental insurance. Because only four years had been passed since the introduction of private dental insurance, the awareness and purchase rate was found to be low. However, the number of people considering subscription due to the economic burden of dental care service was relatively high. Factors affecting awareness were satisfaction of the national health insurance, purchase of private health insurance and private dental insurance, self-perceived dental health status, and smoking. The variables affecting purchase of dental insurance were age, awareness, purchase of private health insurance, smoking, number of visits to dental institution. Because qualitative and quantitative change would be made in the dental care utilization due to the rapidly growing dental insurance subscribers, further studies regarding the trend of purchase rate of private dental insurance and the effect of dental insurance on use of dental institution are needed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.497-505
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• 2018

This study was conducted to investigate the characteristics of private health insurance subscribers and non-subscribers as they relate to severely ill patients, and to identify the factors of participation. The study was conducted using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2015, and data were analyzed using SPSS ver. 23.0. The subjects were 417 patients with severe disease (cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease) over 19 years of age. Crossover analysis was employed to identify differences between the state of private health insurance participation, while binary logistic regression analysis was used to confirm the factors affecting private health insurance subscription. Analysis of the effects of the subjects on the private health insurance participation rate revealed that the social and demographic characteristics were higher in younger individuals regardless of sex, residence, or marital status. Moreover, higher household income, regardless of the education level, was associated with a higher participation rate of health insurance target individuals compared to medical benefit target individuals. The private health insurance participation rate was low and the explaining power was 51.7%, regardless of subjective health awareness and walking practice. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve the living environment and support local governmental programs for the elderly, low income households, socially vulnerable groups with limited activities and groups with limited health behavior. It is also necessary to consider various health policies, such as providing government health education or programs to prevent severe illness.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.264-272
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• 2023

Background: Private health insurance supplements the coverage of national health insurance in Korea. In this situation, the subject of the study is to identify the healthcare utilization of people with physical and mental illnesses according to private health insurance. Methods: This study used data from the Korea Health Panel Survey 2018. The study population consisted of 813 individuals with physical and mental illnesses (PMI). Multiple logistic regression analysis and binominal logistic regression analysis were conducted about the utilization of emergency, inpatient, and outpatient medical services of people with PMI depending on enrollment in private health insurance (PHI). Results: The results of this study indicated that individuals with PHI utilized emergency and outpatient medical services less frequently compared to those without PHI. Conversely, having PHI was associated with a higher utilization of inpatient medical services compared to not having PHI. Binomial logistic regression analysis revealed that individuals with PMI who had PHI exhibited a higher frequency of visits to emergency and outpatient medical services compared to those without PHI. However, the significance of this trend was not observed in the case of emergency medical services. On the other hand, individuals with PMI who had PHI showed a lower frequency of visits to inpatient medical services compared to those without PHI. Conclusion: In conclusion, there was a significant relationship between having PHI and the utilization of medical services in people with PMI. There is a need for a follow-up study considering the type of mental illnesses, length of stay, and health outcome of people with PMI depending on having PHI.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.12
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• pp.190-204
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• 2010

This study firstly examined the socioeconomic and health factors associated with infiltration of private health insurance. Secondly, we compared health behavior, outpatient and inpatient use of private health insured with uninsured. The method of this study is that secondary analysis of the 2008 Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey was conducted for 7178 respondents aged 19 over. We use the logistic regression and t-test for data analysis. The first dependent variable was dichotomy which is divided to private health insured or uninsured and the second dependent variable was the presence and frequency of outpatient and inpatient use. The descriptive variables was gender, age, marital status, income, education, occupation, type of national health insurance, residential area, self confidence of health, prevalence rate of common disease, activity limitation, drinking and smoking status. The result of the major findings are as follows. First, 59 under aged person, married person, people in the higher brackets of income, national employee insured were more likely to infiltrate private health insurance. The poor self confidence of health, activity limitation, person with hypertension or allergic rhinitis and smoker were negatively related in infiltrating private health insurance. Second, private health insured did more preventive behavior such as self-paid health examination, cancer screening, regular exercise than uninsured. Third, private health insured was positively related with the presence of outpatient use and frequency of inpatient use

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.115-126
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• 2015

Objectives : This research was performed to investigate the characteristics and determination factors of health care policy satisfaction and welfare recognition for health insurance & health care financing. Methods : The utilized data were 4,174 cases who responded to a welfare recognition survey in the 8th wave of the Korea Welfare Panel Study (2013). The statistical methodology used in this study is the multiple regression model. Results : The significant affecting factors of health care policy satisfaction were age, education, household income, welfare attitudes, and health status. Medical utilization & private medical insurance were not related to health care policy satisfaction. The affecting factors of health insurance reinforcement were age, health status, welfare attitudes. The affecting factors of health care financing expansion were age, economic activity type, medical utilization, welfare attitudes. The affecting factors of welfare attitudes were age, economic activity type, household income, health insurance, and health status. Conclusions : Health care policy satisfaction, health insurance reinforcement, and health care financing expansion were all affected by age and welfare attitude; but this was not the case for private health insurance. This study recommended that the Korean government provide active planning for reinforcement of health insurance and publicity of the health care system in order to accord with the prospects of people.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.268-276
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• 2018

This study examined the effects of indemnity private health insurance on the medical utilization among the Korean adults. The used data were the 2014 survey data of Korea Health Panel, and the number of subjects was 11,436. Authors employed instrumental variable regression model where the instrument variables for controlling for endogeneity of indemnity were the purchasing of private pension and number of family members. The results showed that the number of outpatient visits and the number of hospitalizations for indemnity private health insurance subscribers were higher than non-subscribers. The number of household members and the private pension variables were proved to be appropriate as instrumental variables. This paper recommends the Korean government to monitor and evaluate the effects of indemnity private health insurance on the medical utilization in order to improve the efficiency of health care finance.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.58-69
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• 2017

Recently, with the increase in the number of private health insurance subscribers, interest in overuse of the medical service is increasing. This study analyzed the impacts of private health insurance (PHI) on medical institution selection in outpatient service utilization among persons with arthritis. In order to control patients' health status, we extracted outpatient episodes with the same disease (KCD6, M13) from Korea Health Panel. The unit of analysis was an outpatient visit with arthritis in 2014 (n=23,363). In the light of insurance coverage, we redefined three type of private health insurance (ex, indemnity, fixed benefit, and non-insured) as a test variable and two type of medical institution (ex, hospital and physician visit) as a dependent variable. We conducted a probit regression analysis to identify the impacts of PHI on medical institution selection controlling for heteroscedasticity. The results of this study showed that the insured with indemnity were more likely to choose hospital departments than clinics (marginal effect=0.0475, p=0.000). The impact of participation of fixed benefit PHI was not as clear as that of indemnity type (marginal effect=0.0162, p=0.047). In conclusion, this study confirmed that PHI, particularly indemnity type has a significant impact on the selection of medical institutions. Healthcare policy makers should consider that PHI not only affects the overall quantitative increase in healthcare utilization, but also influences the selection of medical institutions.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.185-206
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• 2008

The National Health Insurance (NHI) has been the main body of health care system in Korea for the last 30 years since the NHI was founded. However, the inefficient management and strong regulations of the NHI have hindered the development of health care industry. The establishment of the MB government, whose interest lies on economic growth rather than equity, is expected to help the health care services gain a momentum. The essential measures that can step up public health care services overall are the following: the introduction of competition within NHI, the activation of private health care insurance, and the allowance of for-profit hospital. The private-public mix with market mechanism would level up the health care service for the public.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.177-192
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• 2011

The arguments exist that private health insurance(PHI) policy holders tend to use the health care services more than non-policy holders due to their little out-of-pocket spending, resulting in the adverse effects on the finances of National Health Insurance. This study aims to increase the objective understanding of the issue and to draw a direction of further research, by reviewing the articles, reports and statistics which examined the effects of purchasing PHI policies on health care utilization. Significant differences in healthcare utilization, except for the very partial increase of utilization in outpatient settings, have been not found. The similar trends of the results have existed in a few previous studies which tried to control the endogeneity of medical use and health insurance with latent variables which affect the decision on medical use and health insurance. However, we can not exclude the potential change of healthcare utilization patterns because the portion of the insured of indemnity PHI is becoming rapidly larger in the market. For further research, we should try to obtain the objective information of subjects' past medical history, health status, health related behavior, and income affecting purchase of PHI and utilization of healthcare services. And the efforts of controlling the endogeneity of medical use and health insurance with latent variables which affect the decision on medical use and health insurance, are very considerable.