Effects of Visiting Nursing Services in Long-term Care Insurance on Utilization of Health Care

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This is a comparative study using secondary data from the Korean national long term care (LTC) insurance. METHODS: Visiting nursing (VN) service users (n=666) and non-users (n=4,375) were extracted and compared in terms of medical expenditures, length of hospitalization, and annual number of ambulatory care visits to investigate effects of VN services in LTC. RESULTS: Total health care expenditures were compared between the two groups and it was found that VN service users spent about $ 1700 than non-users for their medical costs between 2009 and 2011. The average length of in-hospital stay for VN service users was 19.4 days shorter than that of non-users. However, using VN services did not significantly influence the annual number of ambulatory care visits. CONCLUSION: The study has found that VN services are effective ways of providing community-based LTC services. We recommend LTC policy makers to further utilize VN services to deliver cost effective health care services.