Almost three decades have past since the National Health Insurance scheme was introduced in 1977. This system spreads the otherwise abrupt and lump-sum household expenditure caused by disease, childbirth or death and has become part of the public me...
Almost three decades have past since the National Health Insurance scheme was introduced in 1977. This system spreads the otherwise abrupt and lump-sum household expenditure caused by disease, childbirth or death and has become part of the public medical security system to stabilize citizens'' finances. The National Health Insurance (NHI) is operated based on the Coinsurance System, which is a method of suppressing the increased demand for medical services. The system burdens the beneficiary of medical services with a part of the medical cost to promote a balanced revenue and expenditure of insurance finance and to prevent excessive and/or abusive use of medical services.Currently in Korea, the rate of Statutory Deductibles is 20% for inpatients. For outpatients, the patients pay part of the medical costs as a flat sum or on a flat rate basis (40 to 55%), depending on the type of medical institutions. Under the ''Small Burden, Small Payment'' principle, the rate of coverage with the NHI is 61.3%, relatively lower than the average rate of 70% among OECD countries. As a result, the rate of insurance coverage enjoyed by seriously ill patients, such as cancer patients, is less than half of the total medical cost (47.7%), which is far below than the OECD average. Strengthening the role of NHI as the social safety net is imperative, especially for the cancer patients who suffer dearly with the combination of heavy medical costsand painful symptoms. The large (Ed- outrageous is too sensational and opinionated) medical bills issued to the serious cases are one of the reasons for them to fall into poverty. The growing rate of cancer manifestation is a compelling argument for reducing the deductible rate. As a policy to strengthen the coverage of serious cases, in September, 2005, the Statutory Deductible rate was halved, from the current 20% to 10% of the total medical cost, and the insurance coverage was expanded to include medicine and treatment materials, which were previously uncovered items.
This study has analyzed the sum of medical costs paid by patients and the status of uncovered medical costs based on the positive data for the cancer patients hospitalized in 2 Specialized & General Care Institutions, at two time periods for comparison:five months before and after the implementation of the policy.
The government has implemented the policy to raise the rate of NHI coverage to 70% and above by 2006, from the previous 47% in 2005, under the assumption that the payment of covered and uncovered medical costs burdened by the serious cases will both decrease. This study investigates the effect of the reduced deductible rate on something, and the subsequent effect on the government''s burden.
A thorough review and analysis of the above mentioned data produced the following results.
First, the deductible rate for patients on NHI increased after the implementation of the policy: from 54%~53% to 60%~63.1%for non-surgical medical services, and from 44.9%~45% to 52~53.6% for surgical medical services.
Second, the average of the patients'' total cost among all hospitalized patients decreased after the implementation of the policy: from 46%~48% to 36.7%~40% for non-surgical medical services, and from 55.1%~54.6% to 40%~47% for the rate of patients'' payment surgical medical services. This was a considerable decrease from the average rate of coverage of 47.7% in 2005.
Third, the rate of patients'' payment decreased from 31%~34% to 29%~32% for their uncovered non-surgical medical services and from 42.5%~43.3% to 39.7~41.3% for their surgical medical services.
Fourth, the deductible rate dropped from 13.9%~15.1% to 7.1%~7.6% for non-surgical medical services and from 11.8%~12.1% to 6.5% for surgical medical services, which was a considerable decrease from the covered and total medical costs. Uncovered areas also showed differences depending on the type of cancer.
The changes in health insurance coverage affecting cancer patients and the increases and decreases in their payments for their treatment have been studied here. An analysis of these study findings will suggest a research direction for further studies.
First, study on the policy needs to continue as the insurance coverage is expanded.
Second, the standard guideline on selective non-coverage items must be studied.
Third, the ways to improve the patient room rate gap and the Selective Medical Treatment System will have to be studied.
Future study on the Cancer Patient Coinsurance System will have to be conducted by annually analyzing the relative data with such methods to trace the changes. If more data from medical institutions can be analyzed, more accurate and helpful results will be achieved.