The effectiveness of preventive care at reducing curative care risk for the Taiwanese elderly under National Health Insurance

Whether provision of free preventive care for the elderly under National Health Insurance has reduced the risk for curative care use raises much concern in Taiwan. This study analyzes the relationship by examining the impact of health examination utilization on the utilizations of outpatient care and inpatient care. Data come from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey and National Health Insurance Research Database. A two-stage method is used in the estimation. We found a negative relationship between the utilization of preventive care and hospitalization care in terms of length of stay and medical expenditures. On average, the elderly people who used preventive care tended to have 16 shorter hospitalization stays and NTD64,220 lower hospitalization expenditures than their counterparts. In order to improve the health of the elderly and reduce the escalation of medical expenditures due to aging, including preventive care in the health insurance is a very effective strategy. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.