• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.421-450
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• 2013

One of the challenging tasks of the National Health Insurance Corporation(NHIC). the only public insurance institution administrating the Korea's compulsory national health insurance(NHI) system, is to make those NHI beneficiaries who fail to make a scheduled monthly premium payment to pay. For this purpose, the NHIC has been using a measure known as 'Benefit Limit Measure(BLM)' in which those who miss premium payment for six or more month's in total are classified as 'late payer' and are sent warnings and late payer status notices. If the late payers fail to make a full payment of missed premiums even after receiving the written notices, the NHIC can order a temporary seizure of the late payer's property until all missed premiums plus interest are paid. Recently, the BLM has been criticized by the public of its cruel nature, and its effectiveness has been questioned because no empirical evidence has been collected. In this study, the authors using the NHIC data set attempted to analyze the effectiveness of the BLM. Those late payers for whom the BLM was administered were compared to those not in terms of the likelihood of paying missed premium payments with a series of logistic regression analyses models. Data analyses results showed that the likelihood of paying one or more month's unpaid premium of the former group was 14 to 46 times higher than the latter. It, however, was also found that the BLM was only effective to make no more than 12% of the late payers to pay at all. Based on the study findings, the authors made a few recommendations regarding the BLM.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.131-139
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• 2015

With the request for the advent of new engine toward economic growth, the issue regarding public-owned data disclosure has been increasing. The Korean governments are forced to open public-owned data and to utilize them in solving the various social problems and in promoting the welfare for the people. In contrast, due to the distrust of the effectiveness for the policy, many public owned organizations hesitate to open the public-owned data. However, in spite of communication gap between the government and public organizations, Ministry of Government Administration and National Information Society Agency recently planned to accelerate the information disclosure. The study aims to analyze the perception of the public organization for public data utilization and to provide proper recommendations. This research identified mutual weights that the organization recognize in opening and sharing the public data, based on benefit, opportunity, cost, and risk. ANP decision making tool and BOCR model were applied to the analyses. The results show that there are significant differences in perceiving risk and opportunity elements between the government and public organizations. Finally, the study proposed the ideal alternatives based on four elements. The study will hopefully provide the guideline to the public organizations, and assist the related authorities with the information disclosure policy in coming up with the relevant regulations.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.341-352
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• 2012

It is well established that excessive sodium intake is related to a higher incidence of chronic diseases such as hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease and gastric cancer. Although the upper limit of the current sodium intake guideline by WHO is set at 2,000 mg/day for adults, sodium intake of Koreans is well over 4,700 mg/capita/day implying an urgent need to develop and implement sodium intake reduction policy at the national level. This study investigated the cost-effectiveness of the sodium intake reduction policy, for the first time, in Korea. Analyses were performed using most recent and representative data on national health insurance statistics, healthcare utilization, employment information, disease morbidity/mortality, etc. The socioeconomic benefits of the policy, resulting from reduced morbidity of those relevant diseases, included lower medical expenditures, transportation costs, caregiver cost for inpatients and income losses. The socioeconomic benefits from diminished mortality included reductions in earning losses and welfare losses caused by early deaths. It is estimated that the amount of total benefits of reducing sodium intake from 4.7 g to 3.0 g is 12.6 trillion Korean Won; and the size of its cost is 149 billion Won. Assuming that the effect of sodium intake reduction would become gradually evident over a 5-year period, the implied rate of average return to the sodium reduction policy is 7,790% for the following 25 years, suggesting a very high cost-effectiveness. Accordingly, development and implementation of a mid-to-long term plan for a consistent sodium intake reduction policy is extremely beneficial and well warranted.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.39-49
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• 2017

This was a qualitative study on medical aid patients to understand the cause and process of statistical difference of health service utilization between medical aid and health insurance patients. The main results were the following; 1) There was few overuse of health service in medical aid patients. The reason of heavy utilization was mainly due to the complicated disease. Some of them were considered to overuse physical therapy and oriental acupuncture. 2) In case of medical aid patients, medical cost was paid by their welfare benefit of government or by the support of family or neighbors. They usually could not adequately use the services of uninsured benefit or large hospitals due to the cost. Some patients just endured the pain. There was still discrimination for medical aid patients in some medical institutions. 3) The health officials and institutions did not provide sufficient information to medical aid patients about the policy of medical cost support. 4) Health policies, such as selective clinic system, medial aid case management, approval of extended care, were considered to contribute in preventing unnecessary use of health service. However, this might limit adequate use of medical aid service. In conclusion, there is little evidence of overuse of health service for medical aid patients, which is different from the previous studies. A new plan is necessary, because medical aid patients thought that the necessary health service was not accessible to them.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.869-877
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• 2018

This study analyzed the current status of MRI (frequency, amount of treatment) based on the history of application of the MRI health insurance benefit standard and health insurance claim data. MRI examinations began as a health insurance benefit in 2005. In 2005, the indications were restricted for some diseases, but coverage for benefits in 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2018 was expanded. In 2021, the Ministry of Health and Welfare decided to apply health insurance for all MRI examinations. From 2010 to 2017, the number of MRI examinations increased by 86.7% in 2017 compared to 2010, and the amount of treatment increased by 53.5%. According to general characteristics, the number of MRI examinations was higher in women than in men. By age, the number of examinations was the highest among ages 70-79. Outpatient examinations were more frequent than inpatient examinations, and the number of examinations in the tertiary hospitals was the highest among the types of hospitals. The number of brain MRI examinations was the highest in each exam site. In December 2013, the standard of MRI was expanded for heart disease and Crohn's disease, the number of cardiac MRI and abdominal MRI examinations increased in 2014 compared to 2013. However, the number of examinations is small and not associate with the disease, it would be difficult to say that it affected the increase in the total number of MRI examinations. To assess health insurance sustainability and policy effectiveness, monitoring will be necessary.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.735-744
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• 2021

This study is a concept analysis of membership, using the evolutionary concept analysis method. Literatures published from January 2000 to January 2020 were searched on CINAHL, EBSCO, and websites of professional associations, using keywords including 'Member support', 'Member welfare', 'Professional association', 'Membership', and 'Member benefit.' Finally, 12 articles and 4 professional association website data were selected for analysis. The antecedents of membership comprised two dimensions, viz., the member level, and the association level. The antecedent at the member level included need of members, whereas antecedent at the association level was to set up a new department responsible for memberships. Attributes of the membership included 'member support', 'member professionalization', and 'member solidarity'. The consequences of membership also consisted of two dimensions: increased member satisfaction and professionality, and enhancement of rights and interests at the member level, and improvement of public awareness for the professional association at the association level. The findings of this study suggest that providing proper membership is a desirable direction of the association's member support considering the member's opinion ultimately, and propose future research for membership development. This study significantly provides the contextual basis, by identifying the antecedents, attributes, and consequences of membership.

• 한국노년학
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to examine that basic pension entitlement affects the subjective well-being(SWB) of the elderly. For controlling unobserved heterogeneity, we used fixed effects model for longitudinal data. The data used for this study is KLoSA from 2006 to 2016. The research results are as follows. SWB of non-basic pensioners was higher than for basic pension beneficiaries. Second, when the demographic variables were controlled, SWB of the basic pension recipients was higher then that of non-beneficiaries. Third, the factors affecting SWB were economic satisfaction, marital status, family financial support, employment status, subjective health status, daily life restrictions, gender, and age. Fourth, the effect of basic pension on SWB was positive at the lowest income quartile. The results of this study shows that the basic pension system has a positive effect on the SWB of elderly despite the low benefit level. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the basic pension system to solve poverty problems and improve the quality of life for the aged. Also, various aspects of social support for the low-income vulnerable elderly are needed. Lastly, It was suggested that the benefit level of the basic pension should be raised to have a substantial effect on the low-income class, which is a key policy subject.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.341-369
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• 2006

This study attempts to explain how the social-worker empowerment in the field of social work relates to social-work self-efficacy and whether or not the transactional leadership of the leader moderates the relationship between these two variables. Data from 390 social workers working with public and private sector agencies in Seoul were collected. For the questionnaire and analysis, this research uses the Social Worker Empowerment, Social Work Self-Efficacy, and Transactional Leadership scales. This research utilizes a wide range of statistical analyses, such as descriptive analysis, Pearson's correlation, reliability analysis, factor analysis, multiple regression, and general linear modeling. The calculations employed the use of SPSS/PC+ 12.0. This research indicates, among other things, that social workers with a high level of social worker empowerment and transactional leadership of the leader show a tendency toward higher social work self-efficacy and that the leader's transactional leadership level plays a moderating function in the relationship between social-worker empowerment and transactional leadership of the leader. In conclusion, a social worker with a low level of leader's transactional leadership shows a relatively greater tendency toward social work self-efficacy when compared to a social worker having a high level of leader's transactional leadership. Social workers and social-work organizations seeking professional practice can benefit from these findings on the relationship between professional behavior and social work self-efficacy with perceived transactional leadership about a team leader as a moderator.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.1
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• pp.33-57
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• 2017

This study examines the effect of working conditions for care workers on the care quality in long-term care facilities, particularly the coexisting perspective on publicness and the marketization of Long-term care services in South Korea brings about. Prior studies have not identified a causal relationship between working conditions and the care quality, only explained cause of a low-wage labor market and low productivity of social services. Theoretical relevance of working conditions and service quality on Long-term care in Korea is to view from a integrated care model by Daly and Lewis(2002). A nonproportional stratified sampling procedure was used to consider Long-term care facility's ownership. A merged dataset combining surveys from 248 Long-Term Care facilities and online resources from NHIC administrative was used and analyzed by multiple regression. The analysis results is showed as follows. Overall, organizations with better working conditions, having higher wage, having greater a fringe benefit, being skills development and training are likely to have good care quality in each area. This research shows that the working conditions, rewards and support to care workers of organizational culture in the normative dimension beyond the minimum standard on labor market policy and evaluation system by government regulations have a positive impact on Long-term care quality.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.68 no.4
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• pp.53-74
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• 2016

In this study, to verify influence that economic situations of a household unit have on donation behavior, after economic situations of a household unit were measured with income and assets by type and income to assets, effect which each variable has on secular giving was verified. This study used 3-year panel data of a total of 4,938 households based on the fifth to seventh year data as investigation data from 2012 to 2014 among data of financial panel investigation of Korea Institute of Public Finance of National Survey of Tax and Benefit. As an analysis method, a random effect tobit model was used. At the analysis result, it appeared that as scales of financial assets, earned income, property income, and transfer income become larger, the amount of donation increased. Also, it was represented that rates of income to assets had negative influence on secular giving. In case of demographic variables, education levels of householders and sizes of houses had relation of a positive direction. In case of ages, it appeared that they had inverted U-type relation. This study has meanings in that understanding of donation behavior of a household unit can be increased and expanded more and also implications related to intervention strategies of a household unit to expand sharing culture can be extracted by verifying influence which economic factors of a household unit have on donation behavior based on panel data.