Impacts of health care alliance on the visiting rate of NRCMS patients within the county:Case study of Huangzhong county, Qinhai province / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

Objective:After examining the changes in medical expenses and flows of hospitalized patients with-in and outside the county under the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme ( NRCMS ) before and after the imple-mentation of health care alliance reform, this paper analyzes the impacts of health care alliance reform on the visiting rate of NRCMS patients within the county and explores their causes and channels. Methods:This paper uses the hos-pitalization data of NRCMS patients in 2013 and 2014 collected from Huangzhong county Qinghai province and inter-views with key informants and analyzes the hospitalization expenses, visiting flows and other indicators of patients. Results:After starting health care alliance reform, the total number of hospitalized patients to seek treatment outside the county decreased by 6 . 38%, the total hospitalization expenses to seek treatment outside the county decreased by 22 . 13%, and the hospitalization expenses per inpatient day to seek treatment within and outside the county increased by 14. 41% and 20. 69% respectively. Conclusions: By improving service capabilities of township health centers and increasing synergies between county-township-village health institutions, the county health care alliance reform has suc-cessfully enhanced the service capabilities of health care systems in the whole county and reasonably helped patients with common diseases to be hospitalized outside the county and frequently hospitalized people to return back to the county.