Evaluation On Participants' Satisfaction With New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme And Its Determinants In Weihai

Background:Rural Cooperation Medical System was an important medical security system for peasants and it disintegrated gradually from 1980s, which made the illness-caused poverty of farmers became more and more outstanding in rural areas of China. In order to solve the problem, the central government planned to establish the new rural cooperative medical scheme (NCMS) step by step in October, 2002. The NCMS aimed to reimburse the expenditure of severe diseases. From 2003, NCMS was piloted in many places all over the country, and in June, 2003, it was set-upped roundly in Weihai.Peasants were the main subject of NCMS and their satisfaction would determine the NCMS' future. This article studied the participants' satisfaction and its determinants in Weihai to promote the sustainable development of NCMS.Objective:To evaluate the satisfaction of participants enrolled in NCMS in Weihai, analyze its determinants, and give some suggestions to policy-makers, so as to put forward the sustainable development of NCMS.Methods:Stratified cluster random sampling was conducted, and a total of 1789 families, 4550 farmers were investigated in Weihai. After data collection, investigators from Institute of Social Medicine and Heath Management, Shandong University sorted all the investigation information. SPSS16.0 software package was used to analyze the survey data.The main contents include:â‘ The social demographic characteristics of farmers joining the NCMS.â‘¡The information about health service demand and utilization: such as sickness status, visiting and hospitalization.â‘¢The participants' satisfaction with the fixed medical organizations, the administrative institution and the scheme of implementation.â‘£The general satisfaction of NCMS.Main Results:1) Participating rate: 4247 farmers were investigated in 4550 farmers participating NCMS, and the participating rate is 93.3%. 2) Satisfaction: The degree of satisfaction on NCMS, governments, fixed medical organizations, scheme of implementation are separately 74.0%, 67.3%, 65.9 %, and 49.7 %. 3) Will of participating NCMS: the proportion the number of 4087 persons who want to go on joining NCMS next year out of total number of participating people is 96.2%. 4) Determinants: education, health, employment, knowledge of NCMS, work of government departments and process of reimbursement are the determinants.Conclusion and Suggestions:The satisfaction was quite high. However, the scheme of implementation, agencies of NCMS, and the fixed medical organizations still needed to be improved. Some suggestions are made to solve these problems: 1. To perfect the scheme of implementation of NCMS. 2. Enhance the Propagandas of NCMS. 3. Strengthen monitoring on agencies of NCMS. 4. Strengthen monitoring on fixed medical organizations. 5. Improve ability of providing services of fixed medical organizations, especially the ability of provision of the township hospitals.