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

Ke Jiang,Mitchell Mainstone,Wei Wei,Daming You,Zhendong Li

doi:10.3390/ijerph15040731

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 (χ2 = 22.9, p < 0.000) and income level (χ2 = 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.

Highlights

In recent years, with the rapid development taking place across both the economy and wider cultural spheres of China, the incidence of non-communicable chronic diseases has been rising rapidly.This is especially so in rural northern China, owing to a generally rural, younger labor force entering the urban labor market, coupled with a lowering of the birth rate over time
By a comparative analysis on chronic patients both with and without medical insurance in rural northern China, this study aimed to investigate how rural medical insurance affects patients with chronic diseases, in terms of their choosing a particular hospital for medical treatment, and whether this will alter their repeat choice of hospital in the future
The characteristics of the demographic of the sample taken and their significant differences are shown in Table 1

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development taking place across both the economy and wider cultural spheres of China, the incidence of non-communicable chronic diseases has been rising rapidly. This is especially so in rural northern China, owing to a generally rural, younger labor force entering the urban labor market, coupled with a lowering of the birth rate over time. Self-financed medical treatment will exert greater financial pressure on these elderly people Under such circumstances, the emergence of rural medical insurance plays an important role in easing the stress on their medical expenditure [4]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion