Background: This paper describes the relationship and effect of health examination on personal medical cost by identifying the differ-ence of the cost for medical care in physician visit between the population without and with health examination. Meth...
Background: This paper describes the relationship and effect of health examination on personal medical cost by identifying the differ-ence of the cost for medical care in physician visit between the population without and with health examination. Methods: After classifying into three cohorts in which, independent variables were designed according to the Andersen`s behavioral model, the association of personal medical cost for medical care and prescription drugs which is dependent variable was analyzed by t-test and Mann-Whitney test for description and gamma regression model for inference. Results: In personal average medical cost, the population with health examination paid significantly more than without health examina-tion, 11.6% more in cohort 2008, 26.6% more in cohort 2009, and 48.0% more in combined cohort. The odds ratio on medical expendi-ture of outpatients with health examination was 1.067, 1.126, 1.398 significantly in cohort 2008, 2009, and combined cohort respectively, comparing to the group without health examination. In independent variables, that is female, the elderly, never married, non-working, non-metropolitan, the higher family income, the smaller family size, people with disability, the people with chronic disease, and people with health examination have significantly being paid more tendency showing positive association with medical cost. Conclusion: This result showed that medical expenditure in physician visit has been increased after taking a health examination. There-fore reasonable limitation of getting preventive medical service is suggested to avoid medical shopping around and reduce being re-peated health examination by unifying control to find out easily the clinical results from various medical facilities.