Objectives The objective of the present study was to compare prognosis of patients with gastric or colorectal cancer according to places where they received surgeries. Methods: The cancer patients underwent surgeries in sampled hospitals located in Daegu were matched 1:1 to the patients who visited sampled hospitals in Seoul using propensity score method. After the occurrences of death were examined, Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis and the log-rank test was performed to compare the survival curves. Results: A total of six out of 291 gastric cancer patients who had surgeries in Daegu died (2.1%) and ten deaths (3.4%) occurred from patients went Seoul hospitals. Out of 84 gastric cancer patients who had chemotherapy after surgeries in Daegu, 13 (15.5%) patients died while 18 (21.4%) deaths occurred among patients underwent surgeries in Seoul. Six deaths (6.9%) out of 87 colorectal cancer patients who had surgeries in Daegu were reported. Five patients (5.7%) died among the patients underwent surgeries in Seoul. Among the colorectal cancer patients with chemotherapy after surgeries, 13 patients (12.4%) who visited hospitals in Daegu and 14 (13.3%) patients who used medical centers in Seoul died. There were no significant differences according to places where patients used medical services. Conclusions: The result of this study is expected to be used as basic data for policy making to resolve centralization problem of cancer patients and to help patients to make rational choices in selection of medical centers.
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Objectives The purposes of this study were to examine the status of children and adolescents with regard to enrollment in private medical insurance (PMI) and to investigate its influence on their utilization of medical services.
Methods The present study assessed 2973 subjects younger than 19 years of age who participated in five consecutive Korea Health Panel surveys from 2009 to 2012.
Results At the initial assessment, less than 20% of the study population had not enrolled in any PMI program, but this proportion decreased over time. Additionally, the number of subjects with more than two policies increased, the proportions of holders of indemnity-type only (‘I’-only) and of fixed amount+indemnity-type (‘F+I’) increased, whereas the proportion of holders with fixed amount-type only (‘F’-only) decreased. Compared with subjects without private insurance, PMI policyholders were more likely to use outpatient and emergency services, and the number of policies was proportionately related to inpatient service utilization. Regarding out-patient care, subjects with ‘F’-only PMI used these services more often than did uninsured subjects (odds ratio [OR], 1.69), whereas subjects with ‘I’-only PMI or ‘F+I’ PMI utilized a broad range of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency services relative to uninsured subjects (ORs for ‘I’-only: 1.39, 1.63, and 1.38, respectively; ORs for ‘F+I’: 1.67, 2.09, and 1.37, respectively).
Conclusions The findings suggest public policy approaches to standardizing PMI contracts, reform in calculation of premiums in PMI, re-examination regarding indemnity insurance products, and mutual control mechanisms to mediate between national health insurance services and private insurers are required.
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Pediatric Health Access and Private Medical Insurance: Based on the Ecology of Medical Care in Korea Dong-Hee Ryu, Yong-jun Choi, Jeehye Lee Children.2022; 9(8): 1101. CrossRef
Community-Based Health Insurance Increased Health Care Utilization and Reduced Mortality in Children Under-5, Around Bwindi Community Hospital, Uganda Between 2015 and 2017 Nahabwe Haven, Andrew E. Dobson, Kuule Yusuf, Scott Kellermann, Birungi Mutahunga, Alex G. Stewart, Ewan Wilkinson Frontiers in Public Health.2018;[Epub] CrossRef