Health Services Utilization and Relative Factors of Allergic Rhinitis Patients—Using Panel Claims Data of National Health Insurance Beneficiaries, 2000–2003
Date Issued
2005
Date
2005
Author(s)
Chen, Mei-Ya
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Allergic rhinitis is one of the most common chronic allergic diseases. The prevalence rate of allergic rhinitis is increasing in developed and developing countries, as a result of the development of city, the crowded population and environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the health care utilization and related factors of allergic rhinitis patients.
The source of material came from claims data of the first and second set of sampled registry of beneficiaries of National Health Insurance from 2000 to 2003. ICD-9-CM with four codes as 477, 4770, 4778, or 4779 were selected from the panel database. A total of 56,416 visits (14,981 persons) in ambulatory care and emergency, 67 persons in hospitalization, and 7,735 visits (2,403 persons) in chinese medicine were identified in the final analysis. The major results of this research are as follow:
The prevalence rate of allergic rhinitis in Taiwan is about 15％. Samples were mostly among those age 5 to 12 years, 21 to 34 years and 35 to 49 years. The average medical expenses per outpatient visit was 758.25 points, 713.86 points per person per year. Patients among 0 to 4 years had higher outpatient visits, but patients over 65 years of age had the highest direct expenditure. Factors related to higher medical expenditure were patients with comobidities or complications, received care from medical centers, from Taipei branch or Northern region branch of the Bureau of National Health Insurance.
Multiple regression results indicate that all kinds of ambulatory and emergency care expenses per outpatient visit for western medicine were significantly related to gender, age, season of visiting, with comobidity of asthma, ownership of the provider, contract category of providers, place of visits and department of visits. The amount of drug, days of prescription and the amount of treatment were significantly related to season of birth. All kinds of ambulatory and emergency care expenses per person for western medicine were significantly related to gender and age. Logistic regression indicate that the expenses of hospitalization were significantly related to age.
From results of this research, we suggest that the health authorities could consider to include allergic rhinitis in the pay-by-performance program, emphasize the completeness and continuity of care. The health care provider could pay more attention to the patient who didn’t know that they have the disease, thus delayed seeking medical care. Future researchers could use questionnaire in addition to secondary data analysis. This not only could get more complete relevant factors (i.e. family disease history, the growth environment）, but also could estimate the negative socioeconomic impact due to the loss of productivity.
Subjects
過敏性鼻炎
醫療利用
全民健康保險
allergic rhinitis
health care utilization
national health insurance
Type
thesis
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