The study focuses on the medical utilization of low-income families in Taiwan?s National Health Insurance, in terms of the attendance rate, the number of medical treatment, hospitalization days and medical expenses. Their medical uses are then compared with those of an average insured person one by one, particularly, on five major injuries and chronic diseases such as cancer, renal dialysis, mental illness, diabetes and high blood pressure. The data come from the sample file of 2004 National Health Insurance Research database, in which 1,843 low-income people are selected randomly, and their relevant
information are edited and analyzed.
??Major results show that overall utilization rate of low-income families is 81.39% that is less than the national average by 13.6%. Among various low-income groups, women use more than men; young population (5 to 14 years old) have the highest utilization rate, while the old population over 65 have the lowest utilization rate and keeping decreased with the age increasing. For inhabitation in different regions, the highest utilization takes place in the Southern District branch, and the lowest in the Eastern.Division.
??Though low-income families have less out-patient utilization, 80.79%, than the national average by14.2%, their hospital utilization rate of 14.11% is much higher than national average by 8.54%.
Conspicuously, their ratio of psychiatric hospitalization are 39.24% higher than the national level.
Patient choices among different hospital levels are also quite different. Nearly half of the low-income families select regional hospitals for inpatient health care, which is higher than the national average by 22.39%, meanwhile, only about 15% of them choose medical centers that is lower than the national average by 15.27%.
The prevalence rate of suffering from major injuries for low-income people is 3.08 times of the national sample, while the rate of chronic diseases is 1.1 times of the national sample. The results show that low- income families have high medical need but sill lack of access to realize necessary medical treatments.
That implies several suggestions for assisting low-income people to seek`due medical treatments.
