The impact of expanded health insurance coverage for unauthorized pregnant women on prenatal care utilization

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 459-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle N. Atkins ◽  
Mary L. Held ◽  
Lisa C. Lindley
Author(s):  
Yuan Xu ◽  
Mingshan Lu ◽  
Ning Li ◽  
Elijah Dixon ◽  
Robert Myers ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTObjectiveWith tremendous potential for research and policy use, the development of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is unprecedentedly growing in China. The rich clinical and financial data in the Chinese EMR provides us a unique chance to examine the impacts of health insurance on health care utilization and outcomes, controlling for patient’s disease severity. ApproachesOur study population included patients with cirrhosis or primary liver cancer (PLC), from a large teaching hospital in Beijing. The comorbidity and disease severity variables were defined using EMR automated extraction methods that were validated in previous study. Health insurance was measured by actual reimbursement ratio (RR), which better captures patients’ actual financial burden than type of health insurance. Generalized linear regression model was used to analyze the impacts of health insurance coverage on total hospital expense, ratio of medication cost to total expense, and number of major procedures (i.e., transcatheter arterial chemoembolization, TACE) for cirrhosis. Logistic regression was used to assess the impact of health insurance on hospital mortality and the rate of TACE. We employed a wide range of risk factors in our models to adjust for disease severity and comorbidities, including Charlson comorbidities, MELD-Na score, and etiological factors of liver diseases.ResultsIn total, 5,465 cirrhosis patients and 3,357 PLC patients were included in the study. Among the PLC patients we identified 534 patients underwent TACE. After adjusted for comorbidities, disease severity and other confounders, RR was found to be associated with hospital mortality with odds ratio 3.2 in cirrhosis patients and 6.0 in PLC patients. Higher RR was correlated to lower total hospital cost (logarithm transferred coefficient -0.08 in cirrhosis patients and -0.15 in PLC patients) but related to higher ratio of medication cost (logarithm transferred coefficient 0.09 in both cirrhosis and PLC patients). Additionally, higher RR was associated with higher rate (odds ratio 1.6 in PLC patients) and also more times of TACE (logarithm transferred coefficient 0.31 in TACE patients). The results were consistent between cirrhosis patients and PLC patients.ConclusionThis study provided evidences that physicians’ behavior was influenced by health insurance. Patients with more generous health insurance coverage (higher RR) were found to have relatively lower total hospital cost but higher ratio of medication cost, higher rate and more times of TACE, and were more prone to die in hospital. These are evidences for physician’s gaming reacting to the economic incentives of the payment systems in China.


2017 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 28-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Narain ◽  
Marianne Bitler ◽  
Ninez Ponce ◽  
Gerald Kominski ◽  
Susan Ettner

2011 ◽  
Vol 165 (2) ◽  
pp. 338
Author(s):  
J.K. Smith ◽  
S. Ng ◽  
J.S. Hill ◽  
T.P. McDade ◽  
S.A. Shah ◽  
...  

2010 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kupper A. Wintergerst ◽  
Krystal M. Hinkle ◽  
Christopher N. Barnes ◽  
Adetokunbo O. Omoruyi ◽  
Michael B. Foster

Author(s):  
Jin-Sun Choi ◽  
Se-Hwan Jung

In South Korea, the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) began its coverage of dentures and dental implants for older people in 2012 and 2014, respectively. This study aimed to investigate the impact of these policies on dental care utilization among people aged 65 years or older according to their sociodemographic characteristics. Data were collected from the Korea Health Panel Survey (KHP; years 2012 and 2015). The statistical significance of the relationships between sociodemographic characteristics and the use of outpatient dental care, denture, and dental implant were analyzed. Results showed an increase of 5.7%, 1.4%, and 2.8% in the use of outpatient dental care, denture, and dental implant, respectively, over the course of three years. Including dentures increased its use by 2.5–3.7 times among people aged 70 years or older. Including dental implants alleviated the disparities among older adults based on age groups and duration of education, except those among uneducated people; however, it caused inequity according to household income. Some Korean older adults remain neglected from the benefits of the expanded NHIS. Therefore, older adults’ access to dental care should be enhanced by the implementation of policies to promote oral health care utilization, dental prosthetic services, and older adults’ insurance coverage.


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