The Impact of Health Insurance on Economic Burden for Hepatitis B Inpatients in China.

China’s ongoing health care reform, up to date social health insurance include urban employee basic medical insurance (UEBMI), urban resident basic medical insurance (URBMI) and the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) (1). Health insurance can share economic risks, and enable populations to access health care services (2). HBV-related disease impose financial burden to society (3-5). It was therefore of great interest whether health insurance affect the financial burden for those with Hepatitis B. Between August and December 2012, we conducted the survey of patients with HBV-related diseases in 3 county hospitals from 3 model regions in Jiangsu Province, China. Overall, 230 inpatients were observed, the expenditures of hospitalization were extracted directly from the hospital financial database. mong the inpatients 168 (73%) were males, and 62 (27%) were females. Average hospitalization expense of UEBMI patients was the highest (US$ 3344.43), with median of US$ 2805.23. Hospitalization expense ranged from one-fourth (for UEBMI and URBMI) close to one-second (for NRCMS) of the average annual household income. Hospitalization expenses have exceeded annual personal income for patients with URBMI and NRCMS. Medication accounted for the major part of hospitalization expense (up to 63.73%), the ratio of medication for patients with UEBMI, URBMI and NRCMS was 65.36%, 64.92%, 60.75% respectively. Average hospital stays of UEBMI patients were nearly 40 days, higher than patients with URBMI and NRCMS, there was statistically significant (P<0.05). Reimbursement ratio of UEBMI was the highest (75%), and reimbursement ratio of NRCMS was the lowest, there was significant difference (P<0.05).