The overall aim of this paper is to analyze patterns of those who receive services from the Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) scheme and to pin down determinants of participation behavior of those who are eligible for the LTCI in order to better underst...
The overall aim of this paper is to analyze patterns of those who receive services from the Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) scheme and to pin down determinants of participation behavior of those who are eligible for the LTCI in order to better understand the LTCI scheme and to provide a fundamental framework of forecasting measures of supply and demand of the LTCI for future policy references.
In addition, based on the analysis of participation pattern, how the formal service provision influences the changes in social protection mechanism within family is discussed and assessment of achieving institutional aim as well as possible policy references are proposed.
The study is based on Health Service Behavior Model of Andersen and particularly aims at analyzing how individual specific and demographic factors influence those eligible to take part in the Long Term Care Insurance. First, we asks if individual has joined the insurance scheme and if so, we study what types of service is provided (home care or facility care). The factors influencing the decision include such individual specific parameters as predisposing characteristics, enabling factors, and need factors, and at the same time demographic parameters containing characteristics and availability of long term care service resources in the community also play important role of shaping decision process.
Data used here are from the 2nd pilot program for the Long Term Care Insurance scheme in which service patterns of 5989 aged and long term care service resources of the nine districts where the pilot program took place are included. Analytical method used is Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) that can be used for the analysis of nested data structure available with current data set.
The following conclusions are drawn from the study.
1. Only 60% of eligible elders for the Long Term Care Insurance scheme are actually receiving the service, and for those who has joined the scheme, the type of service provided is almost equally divided into home care and facility care. With high institutional emphasis on prioritizing home care, we can clearly observe failure of achieving the goal of policy.
2. In Korea, the interrelationship between formal and informal care scheme of elders is more complementary and hierarchical than substitutionary. Even if the formal service is being provided, 52.1% of informal care by family do not change while 38.5% of it has supplementary characteristics. Only 9.4% shows substitutionary end results.
3. Predisposition characteristics, enabling factors, and need factors of individual specific determinants as well as demographic factors play significant role of shaping individuals' decision of whether to take part in the Long Term Care Insurance scheme or not. Women receive the benefits more than men do, and those who eligible for National Basic Livelihood Security System(NBLSS) are shown to have higher proportion of receiving care compared to the middle income class and the low income class(here, referred to those who are not eligible for NBLSS but still considered living in poverty). In addition, higher the family care is available, lower the taking part in the service. Furthermore, the greater the level of difficulty with activities of daily living (ADL) functioning and the higher the abnormal behavior, we observe higher participation rate for the scheme. Also, higher the nursing need, lower the service utilization we observe.
For demographic factors, in big cities and mid sized cities, more people participate in the program than in (rural) farming and fishing towns, and wider the available services, service utilization is higher. Also, if there exists variety of nursing hospital, a substitutionary entity for facility care, (in the community) less people take part in the scheme.
4. Type of Long Term Care service that participants opt to choose depends on characteristics of informal service and need factors of each individual and availability of substitutionary care services in the communities. More the informal service provided by the family member and greater the level of difficulty with ADL functioning, participants choose the facility care. Also, regarding demographic factors, higher the ratio of institutional care to home care and wider the home care services available, participants decide to opt for home care.
Following policy recommendations are available based on the conclusion of the study.
1. Adjustment of participants share of care service cost is needed. The research shows that the participation of the LTC scheme greatly depend on income level, and for those have to pay the share of cost, participation of the service is limited. The current system aims to provide universal service, in the line of social security, thus discrepancy observed in between different income groups contradicts the principle of equality needed for the scheme. Therefore, we are in need of alternative instruments to reduce the observed discrepancies of service participation among different income groups.
2. We need to find ways to reinvigorate informal family care. With increasing informal family protection, formal service participation is expected to decrease and by promoting home care, elders can age in place. In addition, governmental expenditure might as well be decreased.
3. In order to achieve the principles of 'equal access in different region' and 'home care priority', expansion of service quantity and balanced development between facility care and home care must be properly dealt with. According to the study, service participation rate is not considered constant across different region, and the availability of different services in different regions is proved to be a factor influencing service participating patterns.
The aim of present study is to provide groundwork for service participating pattern for Long Term Care Insurance scheme, and methodologically by incorporating demographic factors in addition to individual specific factors as decision parameters for service participation, and by using new statistical technique of Hierarchical Linear Model(HLM) as well as testing interrelationship between formal and informal care elders in Korean society, the research has strong theoretical implication. In addition, the study has policy implication as well. By analyzing the Long Term Care Insurance scheme participation patterns, forecasting for future service demand become available and at the same time examining the equality of service participation provides policy alternatives.
Still since the study is based on the data obtained from the pilot program, when actual program takes place, we may observe unexpected differences. Furthermore, by relying on the secondary data, we have only limited number of variables to test effectively. Thus, for possible future research program, similar study analyzing service participation must be conducted after the actual program introduced. Also, variety of parameters influencing service participating must be tested (possibly using more reliable data).