results
temporal characters of cross‑regional medical treatment in patients with malignant tumors from 2018 to 2020, the total number of instant medical insurance settlements of cross-provincial medical treatment in heilongjiang province had kept increasing,among which the proportion of malignant tumor patients had also kept increasing, reaching 30.0% in 2020, an increase of 11.3 percentage points compared with 2019. patients with malignant tumors have become the main group of cross-provincial medical insurance payments. in 2020, the number of them showed a gradual upward trend from february to december, and fell back in january, with a maximum difference of 5253. the variation trend of total medical expense per time wasbasically the same as that of average medical insurance payment per time, but the former changed more obviously from month to month with a slight increase in general, while the latter was relatively stable.
limitations
in this study, some limitations are present. although the sample size of this study is large, there are fewer covariables in this study due to less basic information of patients available in the database, which may affect the credibility of the model results. in addition, this is a cross-sectional study and it is difficult to establish a causal relationship between variables. future research may use panel data with more variables and do further analysis on patients with specific diseases.
conclusion
cross-regional medical patients with malignant tumors in low-income areas are concentrated in the regions with higher economic level and closer to their insured regions,the number of them will be affected by seasonal factors. at the same time, their total medical expenses, actual medical insurance payment levels and out-of-pocket expenses are all affected by the economic levels and distances of medical regions. and the middle-distance medical regions may be the best choice for patients with planned cross-regional medical treatment. the relevant policymakers should pay attention to the above phenomena, fully consider patient mobility and regional differences, and reasonably improve the fairness, responsiveness and sustainability of medical insurance for cross-regional medical patients with serious diseases so as to further reduce their out-of-pocket expense burden. at the same time, more attention should be paid to the supervision of cross-regional medical treatment and the development of telemedicine.
