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