Primary Care Patients’ Preference for Hospitals over Clinics in Korea

Agnus M. Kim, Seongcheol Cho, Hyun Joo Kim, Hyemin Jung, Min-Woo Jo, Jin Yong Lee and Sang Jun Eun
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Agnus M. Kim: Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea
Seongcheol Cho: Regional Emergency Care Center, Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea
Hyun Joo Kim: Department of Nursing Science, Shinsung University, Dangjin 31801, Korea
Hyemin Jung: Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea
Min-Woo Jo: Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 05505, Korea
Jin Yong Lee: Public Health Medical Service, Boramae Medical Center, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 20 Boramae-ro 5-gil, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 07061, Korea
Sang Jun Eun: Department of Preventive Medicine, Chungnam National University College of Medicine, Daejeon 35015, Korea

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-11

Abstract: Korea is in a unique condition to observe whether patients, when equal access to the levels of health care facilities is guaranteed by the support of the national health insurance, choose the appropriate levels of health care facilities. This study was performed to investigate the primary care patients’ preference for hospitals over clinics under no restriction for their choice. We used the 2011 National Inpatient Sample database of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service in Korea. A primary care patient was defined as a patient who visited as an outpatient in health care facilities with one of the 52 minor conditions defined by the Korean government. We found that approximately 15% of outpatient visits of the patients who were eligible for primary care in Korea happened in hospitals. In terms of cost, the outpatient visits in hospitals accounted for about 29% of total cost of outpatient visits. This arbitrary access to hospitals can lead to an inefficient use of health care resources. In order to ensure that health care facilities are stratified in terms of access as well as size and function, interventions to distribute patients to the appropriate level of care are required.

Keywords: primary care; health care facilities; access; preference; hospitals; clinics; Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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