• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.26-38
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study was to estimate home care nursing cost for the patient with Cerebrovascular Disease based on a bundle of home care nursing services This study was conducted through four steps. The first step was to investigate home care nursing activities that were offered to the patient with Cerebrovascular Disease(CD) by home care nurse. The second step was to investigate the time spent on home care nursing service and to calculate labor and manufacturing cost. The third step was to calculate home care nursing cost per minute. And at the fourth step, home care nursing cost for a patient with Cerebrovascular Disease based on a bundle of home care nursing service was calculated. The results of the study were as follows: 1) The number of direct home care nursing activities for the patient with CD was 108, and the time of each activity was spent from 1 to 10 minutes. 2) Average time per visit was 51 minute, and the firs visit time were spent 1.6 times higher than 2nd visit time. 3) Nursing cost per minute(cost per visit ${\\}\;22,565\;\div\;$ average time per visit 51 minutes) was ${\\}\;442$. The cost per visit was calculated on Basic visiting cost(nurse's labor cost ${\\}\;15,760$ + management cost ${\\}\;6,805$) divided by average time per visit(51 minutes). 4) Home care nursing cost to the patient with CD based on bundle of home care nursing service was consisted of basic home care nursing cost, the cost of a bundle of service practiced on visit. and transportation fee. Basic home nursing cost(the time spent on basic home nursing service 20 minutes ${\times}$ nursing cost per minute ${\\}\;442$) was ${\\}\;8,840$. The cost of the bundle of home care nursing services to the patient with CD was calculated as self care ${\\}\;2.898$, Tracheostomy care ${\\}\;10,166$, immobility care ${\\}\;6,188$, sore care ${\\}\;6,188$. Foley care ${\\}\;6,630$, and Levin tube or Gastrostomy care ${\\}\;7.514$. Transportation fee which was composed of the labor cost for transportation(${\\}\;5,122$) and the car management cost(${\\}\;3.876$) was ${\\}\;8,998$. Home care nursing cost to the patient with CD based on bundle of home care nursing services consisted of basic home care nursing cost, the cost of a bundle of service practiced on visit, and transportation fee. It will contribute to improve quality of home care service, because of giving appreciate incentives to home care nurses. And it will be more efficient than current cost of hospital based home care. But it need to management than calculation of the current fee-for-services of home care.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.216-225
• /
• 1994

The cost of hospice care should be covered by the insurance system if it is to be promoted in our country and this, in turn, requires a proper method to the estimate of this cost. The purpose of this study was to set up the method to estimate the cost of hospice care. First the cost effectiveness of hospice care were studied. By tracing the activities of hospice nurses for a given period, all the relevant data such as the scope and load of activities as well as the cost were collected. Then these were analysed and compared with the data obtained from hospice and home care. The results showed that the cost of hospice care was the most economic, and indicate its qualification as .1n in-dependent system. The main part of the cost of hospice care was found to be the labor cost which was up to 83% of the total. Therefore a method to estimate the cost should reflect the real labor cost. Several methods have been proposed in the study in terms of unit labor cost, service time, material cost, and the weight of the labor cost. All variables, including the service time surveyed in this study, can easily be translated into numerical values and it would not difficult to estmate the cost of hospice care. Hence by letting the hospice care be insured, hospice care can be expected to function as a good alternative to the present medical system.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
• /
• v.6
• /
• pp.19-32
• /
• 1999

The purpose of this study was to develop of home nursing care classification and home health care costs of the free-standing home nursing care agency. This study was done through 3 steps The First stage, home nursing care classification was identified and classified by literature, review-committee and expert meeting. The second stage, cost elements for home nursing care visit were identified and accounted. That were divided into direct nursing care cost, indirect nursing care cost, management cost and transportation cost. Third stage, total cost of per visit was produced. Data were collected from 810 visits of 120 patients received home dare and from January. 1999 to November, 1999, and analysed with EXCEL program. The obtained results are as follows : 1. Home nursing care classification was consisted of 6 high level classification domain and 10 low level classification domain and 163 home nursing care behavior. 2. The cost of home nursing care per visit was 30,638 won which were direct and indirect nursing care cost(16.305won), management cost(5,255won) and transportation cost (9,098won). In conclusion. Home nursing behavior care classification developed in this study would be used as home health care standard. And the home nursing care costs can be used as a fundamental data for the further development of home health care costs in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.351-361
• /
• 1998

The purpose of this study was to explore whether there is a point within the range of physical impairment after which the cost of home care exceeds the cost of nursing home care among the elderly who require long-term care. The provision of long-term care for the elderly is a major health policy issue, in part due to the aging of the American population and dramatic increase in health care costs. The framework for this study was guided by Pollak's(1973)model of costs of alternative care settings for the elderly. This study used a retrospective, descriptive correlational design. Physical impairment was measured by the modified Index of Activities of Daily Living(Katz et al. 1963). Cost of care was measured by the average cost per patient per day. The sample for this study included 67 patients receiving long-term care at home from the Long-term Home Health Care Programs (LTHHCPs) and 67 patients receiving long-term care in nursing homes. Data were collected on patient characteristics. including activities of daily living and cognitive impairment. and on the number of physician visits. emergency room visits. and hospitalization from the patient records. For each patient. Medicaid cost data for home care services/or nursing home services were collected from the financial department of each home care agency or nursing home. The living costs and informal care costs were estimated for home care patients. The results indicated that the home care sample and the nursing home sample were similar in terms of gender. ethnic background. and marital status. The elderly patients in the home care sample were: however. younger and less physically impaired than those in the nursing home sample. The hypotheses of this study were supported: For elderly persons with physical impairment scores below 12(possible range of 0 to 14), cost of care was lower in home care than in the nursing home care setting. However, for elderly persons with physical impairment scores above 12. the cost of care was higher in home care than in the nursing home care setting. Thus. in this sample for elderly patients with extreme physical impairment, the cost of home care exceeded the cost of nursing home care.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.25-52
• /
• 1993

Variation in the utilization of medical services is a very important issue in cost containment and quality assurance of health care. Practice variation directly affects health care expenditure especially in fee-for-service system, which is the payment system of health insurance in Korea. In addition to cost issue it is generally accepted that variations in medical practice and the cost of inpatient care suggest the possibility of inappropriate quality of care. This study is to closely examine the patterne and degrees of variation in cost structure of inpatient care among types of hospital and individual hospitals in some tracer diseases, and also to inquire into the service items which contribute much to the variation of total medical care cost. Foru common diseases, i.e. Cesarean Section, appendectomy, cataract extraction and pediatric pneumonia, were selected as tracer diseases. In most tracer diseases there were statistically significant differences in total medical care cost among hospitals in same type of hospital as well as among types of hospital(p<0.01). When total medical care cost were subdivided into the types of service, cost of medication and diagnostic examination varied the most prominenly. When the cost of medication were subdivided again, cost of parenteral antibiotics showed the most prominent variation. Of total medical care cost, medication was most contributory to the variation of total medical care cost(58.1~82.3%), and cost of antibiotics was most contributory to the variation of medication cost(63.9~92.2%). The results of study implicated that reducing the variation of medication may plays a significant role in containing the cost of inpatient care. In order to sort out the factors affecting practice variations including drug prescription pattes further researches are required.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.246-255
• /
• 2003

Purpose: This study was designed to compare direct cost and indirect cost between home care and hospital care according to subject's characteristics. Method: The subjects of this study were patients with cerebrovascular disease. They were 50 patients in six university hospitals and 49 in four home care centers. Data were collected by using two type of questionnaires and reviewing medical records, home care service records and medical-fee claims from April 4th to September 13th, 2001. Result: The results were as follows; First, there was a statistically significant difference of direct cost between home care and hospital care, however, there was not a statistically significant difference of indirect cost. Second, according to subject's characteristics, six variables had statistically significant differences; sex, age, marital status, economy, job and diagnosis. Conclusion: It was found that cost-saving effect of home care was affected by subject's characteristic factors. More study needs to be done to develop a more detailed selection criteria for home care subjects.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.183-195
• /
• 2012

Purpose: This study was performed to identify the variations of nursing care cost depending on nursing care requirement and calculate nursing care cost per one day and one care requirement point. Methods: Nursing care requirement was measured by classifying 3,855 patients according to KPCS-1(Korean Patient Classification System for nurses-1). Nursing care cost was calculated from personnel expenses and nursing care requirement. Nursing cost factors were identified by multiple regression analysis. Results: Average nursing cost per patient per day was 33,588 won, Average nursing care cost per 1 patient classification score was 3,558 won. The nursing cost per 1 patient classification score was different depending on the types and levels of the hospitals. The 4th patient classification group revealed the highest nursing care cost. Nursing cost factors included the number of beds in the hospitals, seniority, number of nurses and first grade in nurse personnel accreditation ($adj-R^2$ 74.0%. p<.05). Conclusion: Nursing care requirements expressed by patient classification scores don't directly correlate with nursing care cost. Further research is needed to evaluate validity and reliability for refining KPCS-1 and to apply variable criteria to nurse personnel accreditation.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 2005

The aim of this study was to compare medical cost of hospice care and that of conventional care during the last year of life, and identify factors that influenced the cost. From January to August 2003 592 terminal cancer patients receiving care from 5 hospice care units and 2 hospice care teams in general hospitals were enrolled to case group. Two hundreds and seventy two terminal cancer patients receiving conventional care from 7 general hospitals were enrolled to hospital-based control group, and 1,636 terminal cancer patients from 122 general hospitals located in same regions with the 7 hospitals were enrolled to community-based control. We used characteristics and medical cost from data of National Health Insurance Cooperation. Total medical cost per beneficiary in cases was about 10 millions won, 14.5 millions in hospital-based controls and 11.1 millions in community-based controls. The hospice care saved $45\%$ over the last year of life compared with hospital-based controls (p<0.0001). Saving of inpatient cost account for approximately $80\%$ of saving per beneficiary. Hospice care saved $29\%$ of medical cost per hospitalization day compared with hospital­based controls and $17\%$ compared with community-based controls (p<0.0001). Multiple regression analyses showed that hospice care significantly saved the medical cost. This study suggest that hospice care save medical cost compared with hospital-based control and community-based control. Most of saving of inpatient cost account for approximately $80\%$ of saving of medical cost.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.52-57
• /
• 2003

The purpose of this study was to evaluate appropriateness of home health care travel cost. For the evaluation, investigated the operating costs of vehicles used by home care nurses and then were components of home care nurses's annual salaries. Travel costs were then calculated based on actual travel expenses of home health care service. Actual data of 23 hospital-based home care agencies between July, 2002 to December, 2002 were collected for the analysis of the travel costs. The results of this study are : 1) For home visit, 65% of home care agencies turned out to be using only hospital owned cars, and 17.1% be depending purely on home care nurses' cars. On average, 1.9 cars used for home visit. 2) Out of 89 agencies, 23 agencies responded to the travel cost survey. Total maintenance cost of a car per month was 381,457 won. 3) Average per visit personal expenses of home care nurses during travel time turned out to be 7,124won assuming 8 working hours per day, 4 visits per day, and 30 minuets of travel time for each visit. 4) Total home health care travel cost per visit was 12,069 won, which was the sum of actually paid travel cost of 4,945 won and personal expenses during travel time of 7,124. In conclusion. we reckon that current compensation price of home care nurses' travel is inappropriate because total home health care travel costs of 12,069 won per visit turned out to be 2.1 times of currently prevailing standard compensation price of 5,830 per visit.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.503-513
• /
• 2006

Purpose: This study focused on analysing costs per home health care nursing visit based on home health care nursing activities in medical institutes. Method: The data was collected in three stages. First, the cost elements of home health care nursing services were collected and 31 home care nurses participated. Second, the workload and caseload of home care nursing activities were measured by the Easley-Storfjell Instrument(1997). Third, the opinions on improving the home health care nursing reimbursement system were collected by a nation-wide mailing survey from a total of 125 home care agencies. Result: The cost of home health care nursing per visit was calculated as 50,626\. This was composed of a basic visiting fee of $35,090{\\}({\fallingdotseq}355$)$ and travel fee of $15,536{\\}({\fallingdotseq}15$)$. The major problems of the home care nursing payment system were the low level of the cost per visit, no distinction between first visit and revisits, and the limitations in health insurance coverage for home health care nursing services. Conclusion: This study's results will contribute as a baseline for establishing policies for improvement of the home health care nursing cost and for applying a community-based visiting nursing service cost.