Impacts of the two payment packages on the hospitalization expenses of cancer patients covered by two medical insurance schemes

Objective To analyze the hospitalization expenses of cancer patients covered with byitem payment and quota payment packages,and probe into the impacts on such expenses for the two payment packages.Methods Inpatient records of 600 cancer patients were sampled by random from the medical insurance databases of Zhengzhou and Fuzhou to learn their hospitalization expenses and impact factors.Results Under the by-item payment package,the expenses of urban workers’ medical insurance were found higher than those of urban residents' medical insurance,with a per capita expense of RMB 32747.70 ± 32035.01 and 23035.83 ± 22875.65 respectively.Under the quota payment package however,there were no significant differences between expenses of the two kinds of inpatients,with a per capita expense of RMB 66043.41±47562.09 and 66576.54±73417.29 respectively.Conclusion There are gaps of reimbursement level between the two basic insurance schemes,which may not disappear in a short time.Under the by-item payment package,the gap exists in the difference of perreimbursement amount; under the quota payment package,the gap is negligible between the two populations under different insurance schemes.It is recommended to make reasonable use of these different payment schemes to minimize the relative gaps in medical service accessibility caused by the difference in reimbursement level. Key words: Primary medical insurance;  Cancer;  Payment package;  Hospitalization expense;  Impact factors