Characterizing Changes in Medical Expenditures and Outcomes Associated with Health Policy Implementation: The Case of Hospital Care for Type 2 Diabetes in China

Background: Chinese health care policy is continuing being designed and implemented towards the goal of generating overall improvement in healthcare delivery including the care of diabetes that has become one of the most prevalent chronic conditions in China. This study evaluated the impact of two major health policy implementations on costs and outcome of hospital care for patients with diabetes. Methods: The 2015-2018 hospital discharge data for diabetes in China were analyzed. The five dependent variables included total charges per discharge, length of stay, daily charges, the percentage of drug charges as the total charges, and the percentage of medical service fee as the total charges; The main independent variables was the implementation of the merge of two health insurance programs and the zero mark-up drug pricing policy. Generalized linear regression and generalized logistic regression were applied with covariates being used included patient age, sex, and occupation, as well as the year. Findings: After the policy implementation, decreases occurred in the length of the hospital stay (-1.35 days), total charges per discharge (-540.8 yuan), daily charges (-43.3 yuan), and the percentage of drug charges (-7.85%).The percentage of medical service fees, as desired, increased by 1.47%. Conclusion: The health policy implementations show certain promising effects on hospital care for diabetes at tertiary hospitals in regard to cost, hospital revenue structure, and clinical outcomes. Nevertheless, caution is warranted to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire healthcare delivery system consisting of the three-tier hospitals. Citation: Donghui L, Guogen S, Burston B, Yin F, Liu R, et al. (2022) Characterizing Changes in Medical Expenditures and Outcomes Associated with Health Policy Implementation: The Case of Hospital Care for Type 2 Diabetes in China. J Hosp Health Care Admin 6: 156. DOI: 10.29011/2688-6472.000156 2 Volume 6; Issue 01 J Hosp Health Care Admin, an open access journal ISSN: 2688-6472