A study of Priority-setting in Korean National Dental Health Insurance Scheme

치과 건강보험 우선순위 설정을 위한 고찰

Priority setting in national health insurances in major advanced countries and the nation was investigated to draw the criteria for priority setting and suggest the most rational criteria for dental insurance so as to help secure the efficiency of medicare financing and individual's health right and also elevate medical consumers' satisfaction with health insurance. 1. Priorities in national health insurance are different from country to country, depending on the medical security systems, priority introducing conditions, and social environment, but have many common factors. 2. The priority setting criteria for national health insurance in those countries include the following in common: the efficiency, equity, and cost effect of treatment, emergency of treatment, consumption of expense, efficacy of treatment, patient's receptiveness, patient's demand, severity of disease, and patient's responsibility for the disease. 3. In oral diseases, severe diseases including oral cavity cancer are low in rate, and in-hospital treatments are few. From the above findings, it is suggested that dental insurance should establish discriminative criteria for priority setting by reflecting the aspects of dental diseases and system difference between dental and other health insurances and taking account of efficiency of treatment through prevention, cost effect, prevalence and incidence of generalized diseases, and individual's financing burden.