Online Program

333498
Analysis of the loyalty of hospitals' loyal patients


Monday, November 2, 2015

Wender Lin, PhD, Department of Health Care Administration, Chang Jung Christain University, Tainan, Taiwan
Chi-Jeng Hsieh, Ph. D., Department of Health Care Administration, Oriental Institute of Technology, New Taipei City, Taiwan
Shang-Jyh Chiou, DrPH, Department of Health Care Management, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan
Mei-Ling Sheu, School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
Objectives: To investigate the trend of loyalty change for hospitals’ loyal patients and the factors associated with the continuity of patients’ loyalty. Methods: We utilized NHRI’s LHID2005 dataset to define ‘hospital loyal patients’ who had at least 50% of their ambulatory care visits in one of medical centers and regional hospitals in 2005. Patient’s loyalty was measured by the percent of ‘loyal’ visits among their total visits. We classified patients into those who continued their loyalty to the same hospital from 2005 to 2008 and those who did not, and applied logistic regression to identify the factors associated with the continuity of patients’ loyalty. Results: Loyal patients account for 19.7% and 16.3% of patients who ever visited medical centers or regional hospitals respectively in 2005. Average loyalty was about 78.1% in 2005 for both type of hospitals, but decreased rapidly to 46.5% and 38% in 2008. Loyal patients who were more likely to continue their loyalty were male, older, and with higher scores in Charlson’s comorbidity index and more outpatient visits in 2005. Medical expenses kept increasing in the following years for continuous loyal patients, while medical expenses were decreasing for discontinuous loyal patients. Conclusion: Hospital loyal patients are unlikely to keep their loyalty to one hospital over time. Therefore, hospitals were not able to be held totally accountable for these patients’ health care and financial responsibility. Health policy should reconsider the appropriateness of hospital loyal patient model in capitation demonstration.

Learning Areas:

Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
Describe the trend of loyalty change for hospitals’ loyal patients and the factors associated with the continuity of patients’ loyalty

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the principal or co-principal of several research grants funded by Taiwan's government to evaluate various programs and demonstration initiatives implemented by National Health Insurance (NHI). My research interests are focusing on the change of beneficiaries' health care utilization after the intervention of NHI's program.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.