Assessment of Medical Expenditure for Patients With Breast Cancer in China: Evidence From Current Curative Expenditure by System of Health Accounts 2011.

OBJECTIVES: The incidence and mortality of breast cancer have been increasing in China and bring heavy economic burdens to patients, families, and society. This study aimed to analyze the structure and influencing factors of inpatient expenditures of patients with breast cancer and put forward suggestions for insurance management. METHODS: A multistage stratified random sampling method was used to investigate 379 medical institutions and 7366 pieces of inpatient records of patients with breast cancer in Dalian in 2018. Under the framework of "System of Health Accounts 2011," the current curative expenditure (CCE) and its distribution were calculated. The relationships between hospitalization expenditure and factors were analyzed by multiple stepwise regression and structural equation modeling. RESULTS: The CCE of patients with breast cancer in Dalian in 2018 was ¥273.38 million, accounting for 10.66% of the total expenditure on cancer. The majority of the CCE flowed to large general hospitals. The CCE was concentrated in patients aged 40 to 69 years (23.46%). The hospitalization expenditure correlated positively with length of stay, surgery, and drug expenses (rs = 0.586-0.754, P < .01) and negatively associated with age (rs = -0.074, P < .01). The length of stay mediated the relationship between surgery and hospitalization expenses for patients with breast cancer. The factors that affected the hospitalization expenditure were the drug expenses, surgery, length of stay, insurance status, and institution level. CONCLUSIONS: The cost control for CCE of breast cancer inpatient treatment is crucial in China. Promoting hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, reducing the length of stay, and improving medical insurance depth would be effective measures to reduce the financial burden of patients.

An application of ARIMA model for predicting total health expenditure in China from 1978-2022.

BACKGROUND: China's health financing system has changed from the government-led mode under the planned economy to the diversified mode under the market economy. Equity in health financing has been a national health priority. This study aimed to predict changes in total health expenditure (THE), government health expenditure (GHE), social health expenditure (SHE) and out-of-pocket health expenditure (OOP) in China from 2018 to 2022, and to provide a theoretical basis for health policy adjustment. METHODS: Based on health expenditure date of time series from 1978-2017, R3.5.1 software was used to construct the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. RESULTS: The model of THE, GHE, SHE and OOP are ARIMA (3.3.0), ARIMA (1.3.1), ARIMA (2.4.0), ARIMA (2.2.2). According to the simulation results, in 2022, China's THE is expected to reach 8473.00 billion Yuan, and the constituent ratios in GHE, SHE and OOP will be 25.49%, 51.25% and 23.26%, respectively. The proportion of THE to GDP will continuously increase from 2018-2022 at a reasonable pace, while THE itself will increase rapidly. CONCLUSIONS: China should take effective measures to control the excessive growth of THE, keep decreasing the OOP percentage, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the use of health funds.

How to apply SHA 2011 at a subnational level in China's practical situation: take children health expenditure as an example.

BACKGROUND: System of Health Accounts 2011 (SHA 2011) is a new health care accounts system, revised from SHA 1.0 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organization (WHO) and Eurostat. It keeps the former tri-axial relationship and develops three analytical interfaces, in order to fix the existing shortcomings and make it more convenient for analysis and comparison across countries. SHA 2011 was introduced in China in 2014, and little about its application in China has been reported. This study takes children as an example to study how to apply SHA 2011 at the subnational level in the practical situation of China's health system. METHODS: Multistage random sampling method was applied and 3 532 517 samples from 252 institutions were included in the study. Official yearbooks and account reports helped the estimation of provincial data. The formula to calculate Current Health Expenditure (CHE) was introduced step-by-step. STATA 10.0 was used for statistics. RESULTS: Under the frame of SHA 2011, the CHE for children in Liaoning was calculated as US$ 0.74 billion in 2014; 98.56% of the expenditure was spent in hospital and the allocation to primary health care institutions was insufficient. Infection, maternal and prenatal diseases cost the most in terms of Global Burden of Disease (GBD), and respiratory system diseases took the leading place in terms of International Classification of Disease Tenth Revision (ICD-10). In addition, medical income contributed most to the health financing. CONCLUSIONS: The method to apply SHA 2011 at the subnational level is feasible in China. It makes health accounts more adaptable to rapidly developing health systems and makes the financing data more readily available for analytical use. SHA 2011 is a better health expenditure accounts system to reveal the actual burden on residents and deserves further promotion in China as well as around the world.

How great is current curative expenditure and catastrophic health expenditure among patients with cancer in China? A research based on "System of Health Account 2011".

In recent years, the incidence and mortality of cancer have witnessed a dramatic increase. Cancer has already caused severe economic burdens on society, especially in developing countries and has become a major public health concern. This study evaluates the medical economic burden, including total current curative expenditure (CCE) and catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) on cancer in Liaoning Province, China. A total of 252 medical institutions were investigated with multistage stratified cluster random sampling. We established a standardized database of 3 532 517 samples. "System of Health Account 2011", a new internationally recognized accounting system, was established to analyze the CCE on six most common cancers. CHE were estimated from the extracted 1344 patients with cancer, which performed a cross-sectional study. The association of individual and contextual factors with CHE was evaluated using logistic regression models. CCE for all the patients with the six types of cancer was 2801.38 million CNY in Liaoning Province, the highest of which was lung cancer. The incidence of CHE was 42.78%, while the threshold was 40%. The average and relative distance were 10.41% and 24.32%, respectively. Influencing factors were length of stay, type of health insurance, location of household, etc. Our findings highlight the need to address medical economic burden in the cancer population. Households with the cancer are more likely to incur CHE. Financial intervention to prevent it should target on poor households. We provide suggestions in aspects of health insurance and health service management to reduce CHE.

How great is the medical burden of disease on the aged? Research based on "System of Health Account 2011".

BACKGROUND: The aging of population and the burden of disease among the aged have become one of the hot topics in the international health, and also brought tremendous pressure in the development of health service. METHODS: A total of 1,377,681 patients aged 65 years and over were collected with multistage stratified cluster random sampling in 252 medical institutions in Liaoning China, and "System of Health Account 2011" was conducted to analyze the expenditure of disease for the elderly. Influencing factors were performed using multiple stepwise regression analysis. RESULTS: The curative care expenditure for the aged was 233.18 billion RMB. Most of the expenditure for the old people was in hospital. Moreover, by the disease, the highest expenditure was incurred by non-communicable diseases. The financing scheme of the aged was concentrated on social health insurance and family health expenditure. Hospitalization expenditure was significantly associated with length of stay, operation, etc. CONCLUSIONS: This study intends to capture large data from various medical institutions with a new accounting system. The finding illustrates that the burden of old people is still heavy.

The effects of China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme on accessibility and affordability of healthcare services: an empirical research in Liaoning Province.

BACKGROUND: China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS), launched in 2003, was intended to prevent the impoverishment due to catastrophic illness costs. Previous studies have been conducted on the "design flows" of the NCMS, for example, the irrational insurance benefit package. But after several years of implementation, very little has been known about the improvements made by the NCMS and rural residents' attitudes toward it. This article specifically focused on the improvements of healthcare services and the enrollees' choices of providers since the implementation of the NCMS in Liaoning province. METHODS: We conducted a one-on-one interview with healthcare officials in order to get a better understanding of the NCMS policies of the local area. We conducted a door-to-door survey in 3 counties, 21 villages and 602 households to gauge population characteristics, respondents' healthcare preferences, satisfaction levels with providers, and their attitudes towards designated healthcare institutions. RESULTS: We found that 43.6% of the respondents believed the NCMS brought more convenience to receive healthcare services. 35.2% of the rural residents thought the NCMS work ineffectively, mainly due to the high healthcare costs. 72.3% of the respondents preferred the county hospitals when they got severe diseases, mainly for the reason of better skills and more advanced equipment, while they preferred village clinics (56.5%) and township hospitals (23.2%) when they got minor diseases mainly for the reason of convenience. CONCLUSION: We concluded that the NCMS improved the situation of hard to receive healthcare services but did not reduce the high healthcare fees. Furthermore, participants were unsatisfied with the NCMS designated hospitals. Based on our findings, a number of remedial actions were proposed, including redistributing healthcare resources, developing more domestic medical equipment to lower the treatment costs, and establishing a new talent flow mode.

Integration of rural and urban healthcare insurance schemes in China: an empirical research.

BACKGROUND: Despite the broad coverage of the healthcare insurance system in China, the imbalances in fairness, accessibility and affordability of healthcare services have hindered the universal healthcare progress. To provide better financial protection for the Chinese population, China's new medical reform was proposed to link up urban employee basic medical insurance scheme (UEBMI), urban resident basic medical insurance scheme (URBMI), new rural cooperative medical system (NRCMS) and urban and rural medical assistance programs. In this paper, we focused on people's expected healthcare insurance model and their willingness towards healthcare insurance integration, and we made a couple of relative policy suggestions. METHODS: A questionnaire survey was conducted in four cities in China. A total of 1178 effective questionnaires were retrieved. Statistical analysis was conducted with SPSS and Excel. Chi-square test and logistic regression model were applied. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The payment intention and reimbursement expectation of the three groups varied with NRCMS participants the lowest and UEBMI participants the highest. In economic developed areas, rural residents had equal or even stronger payment ability than urban residents, and the overall payment intention showed a scattered trend; while in less developed areas, urban residents had a stronger payment ability than rural residents and a more concentrated payment intention was observed. The majority of participants favored the integration, with NRCMS enrollees up to 80.5%. In the logistic regression model, we found that participants from less developed areas were more likely to oppose the integration, which we conceived was mainly due to their dissatisfaction with their local healthcare insurance schemes. Also the participants with better education background tended to oppose the integration, which might be due to their fear of benefit impairment and their concern about the challenges ahead. CONCLUSION: Even though there are many challenges for healthcare insurance integration, it has received strong support from the mass population. However, more emphasis shall be put on equal financing and equal benefit when making further policies. As the current healthcare policies share the same design concept, principle and method, the ultimate goal of establishing a universal healthcare system is promising.