No abstract available.
Aged* ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Korea* ; Long-Term Care*

Korea is becoming aging society and the number of the aged who need long-term care service is increasing. Korean Elderly Long-Term Care Insurance System will be newly adopted soon and to make the system work successfully, comprehensive evaluation and management by professionals with have knowledge of geriatrics is necessary. In addition, long-term care hospitals should play their role between medical services and nursing care facilities as central organizations and form mutual system. The new insurance system only focuses on nursing care without regards of above facts. Other problems of it will be discussed in this study.
Aged ; Aging ; Geriatrics ; Humans ; Insurance ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Long-Term Care ; Nursing Care

In the year 2008, the Korean government has launched the long-term care insurance, which has served much of social service needs of the disabled elderly people. However, there are some problems in the insurance about the care for the subjects with dementia. First, many of the subjects with advanced dementia get lower grades by the assessment system. Second, care workers are not well educated for the management of dementia. Third, the institutions are not well designed for subjects with dementia. Fourth, the medical and social services for dementia are somewhat separated from each other. To overcome these problems, the following efforts need to be implemented. First, the assessment procedure should be revised so that the severity of the dementia can be measured more accurately. Second, the training system of the care workers should be refined. The education about the methods of dealing with the dementia patients should be part of the training. Third, the buildings of the institutions should be changed, for example, to include more one rooms. Forth, the medical and social services for dementia should be integrated. Through these efforts, the long-term care insurance will be developed to serve more of the needs of the dementia subjects and their family members.
Aged ; Dementia ; Humans ; Insurance ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Long-Term Care ; Social Work

Applicants for care services offered by the National Long-term Care Insurance are required to submit a written docu- ment of assessments performed by a physician.These documents are used as a secondary source to determine the level of long-term care required by the applicant. Though necessary, physicians have not received evaluation or fee-dback regarding this process. We surveyed doctors, members of committees for long-term care level assessment, and long-term care team staff of the national health insurance corporation. What was considered useful information differed among the three groups. Integrating the feedback from these groups, we suggested improvements that could be made to this assessment process.
Insurance ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Long-Term Care ; National Health Programs

Korea health care system and public welfare system have been changed slowly and developed step by step. It makes efforts to promote the welfare of the people, but does not provide good benefits for geriatric patients. In 2008, it was incompletely set up the long term care system in Korea. And the Law on Long-Term Care Insurance for Elderly was officially announced in Nov. 2011 and the law for dementia, Dementia Management Act, was drafted in Feb. 2012. Though there were many laws, the concept of long-term care hospital and geriatric care facility is still obscure. In long-term care hospital, there are big expansion of the number of beds and institutions in Korea. Over a half of the patients in long-term care hospitals are suffered from mixed neurological diseases. Especially, dementia is the comorbid state with other chronic geriatric diseases. In view of the aging population, the role of neurologist will continue to grow. So neurologists need more special training for the needed skills and competencies, and the specific care settings program in long-term care hospital. In this review, the history and current state of long-term care hospital, related laws, and the role of neurologist will be discussed.
Aged ; Aging ; Delivery of Health Care ; Dementia ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Long-Term Care*

PURPOSE: This study aims at comparing levels of service satisfaction with and needs for visiting nurse(VN) services among their beneficiaries in order to make a plan for extending VN services. METHODS: The number of the subjects of this study is 270 in total. They were selected in random sampling in which 30 VN service recipients were randomly selected from each of 7 regions based on their grades and region types. RESULTS: The highest total score for satisfaction with the VN services was 46.30, which the rural residents gave to their received VN services, then the metropolitan residents gave 44.57, and the small and middle size cities' residents 43.64. On the other hand, the highest total score for needs for VN services was 33.03, which the small and middle size cities' residents gave to their received VN services, then the rural residents gave 31.68, and the metropolitan residents 30.88. CONCLUSION: As the small and middle size cities' residents showed low satisfaction with and high needs for local VN services, policies need to be made to promote service providers' expertise and accessibility.
Consumer Behavior ; Hand ; Health Policy ; House Calls* ; Insurance, Long-Term Care* ; Long-Term Care* ; Nursing Services

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to investigate family caregivers' opinions about out-of-pocket payment for long-term care (LTC) facilities, and find the differences in the opinions for family caregivers of all different levels of income. METHODS: We used the data of the study on out-of-pocket payment in national long-term care insurance, including 1,552 family caregivers with the elderly in long-term care facilities. RESULTS: The average out-of-pocket payment per month was 511,635 Korean won and distributed from 230,750 to 1,365,570 Korean won. The amount of out-of-pocket payment might be affected by not co-payment but the cost of non-covered service. There were differences in them for family caregivers of all different levels of income. Opinions were surveyed about 5 issues. By levels of income, there were differences in their opinions about 3 issues, the financial burden on LTC, the necessity of reducing out-of-pocket payments, and to be willing to pay more for a high quality service. But there were not different opinions about the interruption of LTC service and staying with LTC facilities. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that the range of out-of-pocket payment for LTC facility is wide and it can be a burden to lower income group. It should be to prepare the policies to ease the financial burden and support the appropriate LTC use.
Aged ; Caregivers ; Health Expenditures* ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Long-Term Care*

The preliminary Long Term Care Insurance(LTCI) of Korea now entered on its rehearsal phase. The economic condition of Korea and the demand for health strengthening through proper medical service of elderly were not fairly reflected in the LTCI. The complex procedure of application for LTC service and unskilled decision system were revealed from the exhibition trial of LTCI. Many requests were suggested to establish operating system. The elderly wanted to take a combined medical and care service than simple care service. Therefore, the professional role of LTCI for a high degree of efficiency should be readjusted and LTCI have to be changed to fit in with the reality of Korea.
Aged ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care* ; Korea ; Long-Term Care* ; Professional Role*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine satisfaction with counseling in long-term care service, and to compare the scores of counseling satisfaction according to variables among beneficiaries of Korean long-term care services. METHODS: Questionnaires were completed by 445 beneficiaries of long-term care insurance to measure satisfaction with counseling. Research design was cross-sectional descriptive design. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA for evaluating differences in satisfaction with counseling according to variables including economic status, the level of long-term care insurance approval, duration of long term care service, and conditions of counseling. RESULTS: The score of satisfaction with counseling was somewhat high as 71.67. The score of counselor's attitude was highest among the subcategories of satisfaction. The factors that influenced satisfaction with counseling were frequency and time of counseling (F=12.19, p<.001). CONCLUSION: Home-based individual counseling is necessary for the elderly who need long-term care service. The National Long-term Care Insurance Corporation should offer counseling and assistance to elders and their caregivers about long term care insurance.
Aged* ; Caregivers ; Counseling* ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care ; Long-Term Care* ; Research Design ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND: There have been deviations in the regional rate of certification in Korean long-term care insurance (LTCI). This study aimed to explore the determinants of the rate of certification in LTCI. METHODS: The panel data of the year 2010–2014 of the 227 National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) regional office were used. Making use of 26 explanatory variables (socio-demographic factors, access to the long-term care services, etc.), we estimated the random effects model using STATA SE ver. 13.0 program (Stata Corp., College Station, TX, USA) and tried to find out the determinants of the regional rate of certification. RESULTS: Estimation results showed that the most important determinants of the regional rate of certification in LTCI are the long-term care infrastructure such as capacity or number of the homecare service institution, sanatorium, or convalescent hospital. The number of the elderly who lives alone and the dimentia patients were positively related to the regional rate of certification in LTCI. CONCLUSION: The estimation results implied that the regional variation in the rate of certification in LTCI has nothing to do with the NHIS regional offices or their employees. To alleviate the deviation in the regional rate of certification in LTCI, we suggested the analysis of the deviation in the survey checklist. We also proposed to found the regional comprehensive support center to prevent the geriatric illness and to improve the residents' health, etc.
Aged ; Certification* ; Checklist ; Hospitals, Convalescent ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care* ; Long-Term Care* ; National Health Programs