NRCMS Inpatients Seek Medical Treatment Behavior Research

At present,large proportion of medical resources in China are distributed in urban areas,only 20%of which are in rural areas.For example,professional doctors always want to find jobs in famous hospitals,which are in urban areas.Under this condition,rural residents are less likely to receive high-quality treatments in township hospitals,so they tend to visit county hospitals.However,they often hesitate about this because of the crowded environment and expensive bills in county hospitals.To solve this problem,the government created the New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance(NRCMI)to provide medical reimbursement for rural residents.The NRCMI is funded by the government,and individuals should pay partly for it if they want to participate.In 2012,100.37%of rural residents in Hefei,Anhui Province,had been participated in NRCMI.Although NRCMI reduced rural residents’ medical cost,their health care-seeking behavior remains relatively unchanged.This study aims to guide NRCMI inpatients choose medical institutions in a rational way.Firstly,logical model was used to determine the reasons of patients’ irrational behaviors.Then we built a health care-seeking behavior model with incomplete information game theory and Hotelling model,which was verified by NRCMI data of Hefei in 2015.Logistic regression model was used to find influencing factors of hospital choice behavior.Results in this study could assist in enhancing health care-seeking behavior.According to the logical model,the imbalance of medical supplies and potential medical needs are the main reasons of irrational hospital choice behavior.The regression model shows that inpatients age,family size,residence and severity level of disease can influence hospital choice behavior.Based on the game and Hotelling model,we find that service price,reimbursement ratio and the proportion of minor disease have great impact on the probability of choosing township hospitals for NRCMI inpatients.Considering our findings,we provide some suggestions as follows:(1)The government should promote a fair distribution of medical resources in rural and urban areas,which can help to improve the service in primary hospitals.(2)Regulatory authorities should take actions to make sure that the NRCMF funds are used properly and create a reasonable reimbursement ratio.(3)Public medical institutions should have a more reasonable price for inpatients.(4)Different hospitals should work together to provide better service and improve the efficiency of medical system.