A survey of the medical practitioners' offices in Korea 2011

Im, Geum Ja; Choi, Jin Woo; Lim, Sun Mi; Seo, Kyung Hwa; Park, Yoon Hyung

J Korean Med Assoc. 2012 Apr;55(4):390-403. 10.5124/jkma.2012.55.4.390.

A survey of the medical practitioners' offices in Korea 2011

Affiliations

¹Research Institute of Healthcare Policy, Korean Medical Association, Seoul, Korea. parky@sch.ac.kr
²Department of Preventive Medicine, Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine, Cheonan, Korea.

KMID: 1785374
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2012.55.4.390

Abstract

Because of various current problems and issues which are low health insurance medical fee of National Health Insurance Corporation, extreme competition with very large general hospitals, new supply of more than of 3,000 new doctors, many medical practitioner's offices who are suffering management difficulties are increasing. In order to investigate their current overall management situations, we made this study through statistical extraction procedures with the sample population of the medical practitioners which are registered in Korean Medical Association and subsequently we made the study with 1,031 selected cases. The average number of patients is 53.6 patients per day. 44.4% of the medical practitioners' offices are working at night and legal holidays and 8.5% are working at Sunday. Average working hours is 50.1 hours per week, which greatly exceeds 40 hours per week that is regulated in the Labor Standards Act. According to the management performance analysis of those medical clinics through profit and loss statements, average total annual sales revenue in 2010 fiscal year was 444,167,867 KRW, the expenses were 314,217,081 KRW and the earnings before taxes was 129,940,786 KRW. The average net profit (earnings before taxes) of the director of the medical practitioners' offices was 122,337,868 KRW per year and 10,194,822 KRW per month. According to the study results, we have found that we need to increase doctor's bill for outpatient, and establishment and its improvement of medical service delivery systems and classification standards of medical services for first and succeeding outpatients. Considering overall results of the study, readjustment of outpatients' treatment fees and reestablishment of more efficient medical service delivery systems which require the first medical service is to be provided properly should be realized in order to improve the management performance of the medical practitioners' offices.

Keyword

Health insurance medical fee; Financial state of the medical practitioners' office; Physicians' income

MeSH Terms

Commerce
Fees and Charges
Fees, Medical
Holidays
Hospitals, General
Humans
Insurance, Health
Korea
National Health Programs
Outpatients
Stress, Psychological
Taxes

Figure

Figure 1 Motives opening of clinics (n=1,023).
Figure 2 Daily average number of inpatients (n=155).
Figure 3 Clinic hours.
Figure 4 Reasons to work at nights and holidays.
Figure 5 Daily average number of outpatients per doctor.
Figure 6 Total amount of expenses for opening clinic per subject.
Figure 7 Deptartment for operation expenses per subject (n=370).
Figure 8 Profits improvement plans.
Figure 9 Expense reduction plans.
Figure 10 Reason of a fee reduction.
Figure 11 Important factors for success of the medical practitioners' office (n=1,031).
Figure 12 Management improvement plans of the medical practitioners' office (Likert 5-point scale is used to measure). 1. Increase outpatient medical service charges (to be considered relatively). 2. Reestablishment of medical service delivery systems. 3. Improve the classification standards for first and succeeding outpatients. 4. Improve outpatient charge decrease system. 5. Expansion of non-medical revenue making business, like patients convenience facilities etc. 6. Expansion of public health services.