The effect of shifting medical coverage from National Health Insurance to Medical Aid type I and type II on health care utilization and out-of-pocket spending in South Korea

South Korea has often been acclaimed for providing universal medical coverage for its entire population in only 12 years [1]. The Korean National Health Insurance (NHI) system began by providing cover for industrial workers in large corporations in 1977. It was gradually extended to other groups like self-employed workers until the scheme covered the entire population by 1989. Along with the NHI, a Medical Aid (MA) program was simultaneously initiated in 1977 as part of a South Korean social welfare program, called the National Basic Livelihood Security System, which supports poor people in need of medical assistance. It is comparable to the USA’s Medicaid program.

Approximately 3 to 4% of the entire population are entitled to MA, and they are segregated into Type I and Type II recipients based on their economic inability or incapacitation (2.8% in 2017) [2]. Type I covers those who are socially deprived and or incapable of working (those aged under 18 or over 65; disabled people; those with severe and rare diseases, and other special cases) [3, 4]. Type II also covers those who are socially deprived but are capable of working [3, 4]. Type I beneficiaries are not required to provide copayments for any medical utilization, whereas Type II beneficiaries have minimum copayment rates of up to 15% [3, 4].

Over time, the MA program has undergone many modifications regarding its beneficiary inclusion criteria and coverage expansion plan, along with the challenges of its sustainability. In 2006, the Korean government announced the need for a major amendment to the MA law owing to the challenges faced in continuing the MA program. These challenges arose from the increase in the number of beneficiaries and the expansion of services; the increased incidence of chronic diseases and an aging population resulted in the continuous rise in reimbursements for MA beneficiaries [3]. Furthermore, about 10% of the beneficiaries used health care services excessively and accounted for about 60% of the total MA expenditure [3, 5]. Additionally, the moral hazards of MA utilization by MA beneficiaries were publicized continuously, because as health care spending increased with insurance, the real value of health care declined compared to the costs incurred in providing it [5].

Accordingly, in 2007, the Korean government implemented several cost-sharing directives. First, the government mandated out-of-pocket spending on outpatient services for Type I beneficiaries [6]. Besides, since 2018, Type I beneficiaries have had to pay ₩1000, ₩2000, and ₩3000 ($1 = around ₩1120) for each outpatient visit to a clinic, secondary hospital, and tertiary hospital, respectively, while there is no cost for inpatient services availed [7]. Furthermore, Type II beneficiaries must pay ₩1000 per outpatient clinic visit and 15% extra for a single secondary or tertiary hospital outpatient visit; and there is an out-of-pocket expense of 10% of the total expenditure for inpatient services availed [7].

In addition to mandating out-of-pocket spending by beneficiaries, the government levied a monthly health management fee to moderate possible abuse of medical facilities provided under the Healthy Life Maintenance Aid Program [7, 8]. Through this program, each Type I beneficiary receives, ₩6000 (around $6) monthly, via a virtual account [7, 8]. Upon receipt of outpatient medical services, beneficiaries make a copayment via the virtual account [7, 8]. If the beneficiaries spend the entire amount available in the virtual account, they must bear the additional costs themselves [7, 8]. Money remaining in the virtual account cannot be converted to cash [7, 8].

Despite these changes, the total medical expenditure by MA beneficiaries has steadily increased, and the medical costs per person are three times higher than for NHI covered individuals [8‐13]. Furthermore, several recent studies have revealed that MA beneficiaries use outpatient services more frequently and stay longer in hospital compared with NHI-covered individuals [8, 10‐13]. Studies have also revealed the differences between the health care utilization of MA and NHI beneficiaries. It has been observed that MA Type I and Type II beneficiaries share some socioeconomic status (SES) characteristics, such as age, income, health status, and economic activity status [9]. Few studies have compared health care utilization between MA beneficiaries and NHI-covered individuals with similar SES [12, 13]. However, these studies have neither compared groups with changing health care utilization, nor medical spending, and they have not considered the shift from NHI to MA. Our study is the first in South Korea to compare the health care utilization and out-of-pocket spending of individuals who have NHI coverage and those who have shifted from NHI to MA and have similar SES.

Therefore, in our study, we identified a case group that has experienced a shift in coverage from NHI to MA because we mainly hypothesized that becoming MA beneficiaries could lead higher use of health care utilization and spending, compared with a matched control group that has had consecutive NHI coverage and exhibits SES characteristics similar to the case group. Subsequently, we were able to estimate differential changes in the groups’ health care utilization and out-of-pocket medical spending in the pre-and post-shift periods using a difference-in-differences (DiD) analysis method. We also hypothesized that the shift in coverage would increase both the number of outpatient visits and length of stay (LOS) and decrease out-of-pocket medical spending.

Using the DiD approach, we estimated the effect a shift in medical coverage has on health care utilization and medical spending. We compared a case group with a control group with similar SES and subjective health status parameters. We found that a shift in medical coverage from NHI to MA Type I increased outpatient visits but did not affect LOS. Furthermore, we did not find differential changes in out-of-pocket spending between the case and control groups in the MA Type I panel. Thus, we can state there was an increase in outpatient visits but no changes in out-of-pocket spending.

Our results deviate from the findings of previous studies as we did not compare MA beneficiaries with the general population but instead with a population subset with similar characteristics. We estimated the differential changes in the outcomes between the pre-shift period and post-shift period; accordingly, different results were found.

Unlike the findings from previous studies that MA beneficiaries remain in hospital longer than the general population [24, 25], we found that the shift to MA did not increase LOS significantly when compared to groups with similar characteristics. Furthermore, by examining MA Type I and II, we identified that the shift to MA Type I could induce frequent outpatient visits, but the shift to Type II did not. The reasons for these results are as follows: (1) Type II beneficiaries are subject to higher amounts of out-of-pocket spending on health care because Type I are subject to little or no copayment, and Type II are subject to 10–15% copayment of the medical costs. (2) MA Type II beneficiaries are more likely to be healthier than Type I beneficiaries since most of them are younger and able to work.

Approximately 10% of the total population of South Korea is 120% below the poverty line; of these, only about 3% are MA beneficiaries, and the rest are unacknowledged by the health care system receiving little medical cost assistance from the government [26‐28]. This is a challenging issue as this part of the population remains exposed to health risks due to poor access to health care services [26], and is a moral hazard for MA beneficiaries (especially Type I) [13, 24]. This indicates that limited government finances are not being spent efficiently.

Previously, the government has implemented policies and programs to address these issues, including mandating the outpatient copayment system for Type I beneficiaries, introducing a monthly health management fee to regulate possible abuse of medical utilization, and a case management program [9]. However, they have not been very successful [9‐11, 29‐31]. The reasons are as follows: (1) weak government control over medical access by beneficiaries [9, 11, 29], (2) little or no copayment fee [8‐13, 25, 30], and (3) selection criteria for MA beneficiaries that focuses more on family characteristics than individual characteristics [29].

A major reason for the continuous, excessive use of medical services is that the minimum level of cost-sharing is too low [8‐13, 25, 30]. Increasing the minimum level or converting the copayment system to coinsurance or deductible payments in the MA Type I could be considered. Although the suggestion may be controversial because it would impose an additional burden on some beneficiaries, we support it for the following reasons. First, adequate copayment or coinsurance payment is associated with a decrease in unnecessary medical utilization; a similar step was implemented in the USA’s healthcare system. In the USA, public insurance for the lowest income population with little copayment or coinsurance has been a concern since it burdens the fiscal with excessive use of medical services along with moral hazards. An empirical example is Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Care program, which imposed higher copayments to low-income enrollees to reduce the fiscal pressures associated with insurance expansion by the scope for moral hazard [32]. However, there remained speculation that low-income populations may be more likely to have adverse health consequences from the result of higher cost-sharing as they could not afford the increased burden, which is also called “offset effects” [32, 33]. However, the evidence proved that no notable offset effect was found with the increase of copayment in the low-income population [33]. Accordingly, imposing copayment for the use of the emergency department [34], or pharmaceutical services in a Medicaid program [35, 36] reportedly improved overall health status. Second, the degree of cost-sharing has changed little since it was introduced in 2007. Third, excessive government expenditure on MA reduces the availability of funds for allocation to other governmental medical support schemes. A statistical report from the Korean government has indicated that MA payments account for 12.0% of the total NHI expenditure, and the total medical expenses related to MA increased dramatically by 39.2% (from 5.1 trillion Won in 2011 to 7.1 trillion Won in 2017). This was despite a decrease in the number of MA beneficiaries from 1.61 million people to 1.49 million people (− 7.65%) during the same period [37]. Furthermore, compared to NHI holders, the MA beneficiaries’ medical expenses per capita is 3.6 times higher, and the LOS per capita is four times higher [37]. Considering that MA beneficiaries are a vulnerable population, 22.9% of the entire population of MA beneficiaries used health care for more than 365 days (the total number of days for outpatient visits, LOS, and medication dosage) [37]. This suggests that adequate control of medical utilization by MA beneficiaries is still lacking. Additionally, our study implies that being an MA beneficiary significantly increases the number of outpatient visits without any significant changes to out-of-pocket spending on medical use. From previous studies, we can infer that the reason newcomers to MA frequently use outpatient services is that the out-of-pocket spending level is extremely low [8‐13, 25, 30]. Therefore, a modification of the MA cost-sharing level should be discussed thoroughly with evidence-based future researches.

As our study has several limitations, the results should be interpreted and generalized with caution. First, owing to data limitation, we could not incorporate several other factors that may affect health care utilization. In the DiD approach, however, if the parallel trend assumption is met between the case and control groups, it can remove the effect of any confounding factors [14‐16]. Therefore, the estimates of the number of outpatient visits and LOS in the MA Type I and Type II panels could be free from confounding issues to some extent. Second, we were not able to consider the number of emergency visits separately since there was no such information in the KoWePS data. Third, the KoWePS data obtained information about health care utilization through self-reporting, and the surveyors collected data retrospectively based on receipts. Therefore, these two factors may have distorted the results of medical utilization.

Regarding the ongoing problem of excess medical utilization by MA Type I beneficiaries in Korea, restraint should be in place. Therefore, our research provides evidence that the shift in medical coverage from NHI to MA Type I increased the number of outpatient visits without increasing the out-of-pocket spending. However, neither of increased outpatient visit and out-of-pocket spending was found for shifting from NHI to MA Type II. Further research requires in-depth discussions on the appropriateness of the current cost-sharing level on MA beneficiaries.