Effects of Rural Medical Insurance on Chronically Ill Patients’ Choice of the Same Hospital Again in Rural Northern China

Ke Jiang, Daming You, Zhendong Li, Wei Wei and Mitchell Mainstone
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Ke Jiang: School of Business, Central South University, Changsha 410083, Hunan, China
Daming You: School of Business, Central South University, Changsha 410083, Hunan, China
Zhendong Li: College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Wei Wei: Department of Scientific Research, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin 300193, China
Mitchell Mainstone: Hertford College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3BW, UK

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-10

Abstract: The emergence of rural health insurance plays a crucial role in alleviating the pressure on rural medical expenditure. Under the current medical system in northern China, rural medical insurance may reduce the free referral of patients with chronic diseases among hospitals. This study was carried out based on the results of an investigation of rural chronically-ill patients in eight county hospitals in northern China, as well as through the comparison and analysis of patients with chronic diseases, considering whether they were with or without rural health insurance. The main results showed that both age ( χ 2 = 22.9, p < 0.000) and income level ( χ 2 = 18.5, p < 0.000) had considerable impact on the rural peoples’ willingness to buy health insurance. Meanwhile, both the quality of the hospital’s treatment ( B = 0.555, p < 0.000), and service quality ( B = 0.168, p < 0.000) had a significant positive correlation with the likelihood of a given patient choosing the same hospital on the next visit, but the medical costs had a significant negative correlation ( B = −0.137, p < 0.000). Eventually, it was found that the provision of rural health insurance had weakened the three relationships upon which the aforementioned correlations were based.

Keywords: patients with chronic diseases; patient’s choice of hospital; rural medical insurance; Northern China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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