Health Insurance and Review Assessment (HIRA) in South Korea, also called National Health Insurance (NHI) data, is a repository of claims data collected in the process of reimbursing healthcare providers. Under the universal coverage system, having fee-for-services covering all citizens in South Korea, HIRA contains comprehensive and rich information pertaining to healthcare services such as tr...

Alcoholic cirrhosis is generally accepted as a risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development; however, little research has examined the relationship between nonalcoholic cirrhosis (NAC) and HCC. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate whether NAC is associated with the risk of HCC and extrahepatic malignancies in Taiwan.We conducted a populated-based retrospective cohort stu...

BACKGROUND Physical activity is expected to reduce medical costs by lowering the risk for a variety of chronic diseases. However, little is known about the actual magnitude of medical cost saved by physical activity. We attempted to quantify the association between time spent walking and medical care costs, based on a 4-year prospective observation of National Health Insurance (NHI) beneficiari...

While most drug policy researches paid attention to the financial impact of expensive drugs, the market situation of low-priced drugs in a country was seldom analyzed. We used the nationally representative claims datasets to explore the status within the National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan. In 2007, a total of 12,443 distinct drug items had been prescribed 853,250,147 times with total exp...

BACKGROUND Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women. Along with improvements in treatment, the number of women who survive breast cancer has increased. Rehabilitation can alleviate post-treatment side effects and maintain quality of life. This study aimed to explore the use of rehabilitation among a cohort of patients diagnosed with breast cancer. METHODS A retrospective longitudi...

OBJECTIVES This paper outlines the potential strategies to identify the poor, and assesses their feasibility, efficiency and equity. Analyses are illustrated for the case of premium exemptions under National Health Insurance (NHI) in Ghana. METHODS A literature search in Medline search was performed to identify strategies to identify the poor. Models were developed including information on de...

BACKGROUND Congenital heart defects (CHD) are known to cluster within families, but existing evidence varies for the estimates of familial relative risk (RR). We aimed to examine familial aggregation and heritability of CHD in the general population of Taiwan.Methods and Results:We conducted a population-based family study using the Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI) research database. Indi...

INTRODUCTION OBJECTIVE To conduct an analysis of all registered South Africa (SA) diagnostic radiology equipment, assess the number of equipment units per capita by imaging modality, and compare SA figures with published international data, in preparation for the introduction of national health insurance (NHI) in SA. METHODS The SA Radiation Control Board's database of registered diagnostic r...

To investigate the association between thyroid cancer as well as the most radiosensitive hematological cancers and radiation exposure from mammography. This study used information from a random sample of two million persons enrolled in the nationally representative Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI) Research Database. The exposed group was composed of women aged 18-65 who had undergone diag...