National Center for Global Health and Medicine Reports Findings in Insurance (Studies of Health Insurance Claims Data in Japan: A Scoping Review): Insurance

2023 AUG 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Insurance is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Tokyo, Japan, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Health insurance claims data are used in various research fields; however, an overview on how they are used in healthcare research is scarce in Japan. Therefore, we conducted a scoping review to systematically map the relevant studies using Japanese claims data.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from National Center for Global Health and Medicine, “MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Ichushi-Web were searched up to April 2021 for studies using Japanese healthcare claims data. We abstracted the data on study characteristics and summarized target diseases and research themes by the types of claims database. Moreover, we described the results of studies that aimed to compare health insurance claims data with other data sources narratively. A total of 1,493 studies were included. Overall, the most common disease classifications were ‘Diseases of the circulatory system’ (18.8%, n = 281), ‘Endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases’ (11.5%, n = 171; mostly diabetes), and ‘Neoplasms’ (10.9%, n = 162), and the most common research themes were ‘medical treatment status’ (30.0%, n = 448), ‘intervention effect’ (29.9%, n = 447), and ‘clinical epidemiology, course of diseases’ (27.9%, n = 417). Frequent diseases and themes varied by type of claims databases. A total of 19 studies aimed to assess the validity of the claims-based definition, and 21 aimed to compare the results of claims data with other data sources. Most studies that assessed the validity of claims data compared to medical records were hospital-based, with a small number of institutions. Claims data are used in various research areas and will increasingly provide important evidence for healthcare policy in Japan.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “It is important to use previous claims database studies and share information on methodology among researchers, including validation studies, while informing policymakers about the applicability of claims data for healthcare planning and management.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Studies of Health Insurance Claims Data in Japan: A Scoping Review. JMA Journal, 2023;6(3):233-245.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Takehiro Sugiyama, Institute for Global Health Policy Research, Bureau of International Health Cooperation, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. Additional authors for this research include Maiko Suto, Kenjiro Imai, Takashi Furuno, Mariko Hosozawa, Yuichi Ichinose, Noriko Ihana-Sugiyama, Tomoko Kodama, Ryuji Koizumi, Yuko Shimizu-Motohashi, Shunsuke Murata, Yayoi Nakamura, Mariko Niino, Misuzu Sato, Reina Taguchi and Misa Ta.

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