Researchers from Harbin Medical University Publish New Studies and Findings in the Area of Public Health (What influences the public’s willingness to report health insurance fraud in familiar or unfamiliar healthcare settings? a cross-sectional …): Health and Medicine – Public Health

2024 JAN 19 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Research findings on public health are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting from Harbin Medical University by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Young and middle-aged people are important participants in the fight against health insurance fraud. The study aims to investigate the differences in their willingness to report health insurance fraud and the factors influencing it when it occurs in familiar or unfamiliar healthcare settings.”

Financial supporters for this research include National Social Science Fund of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Our news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Harbin Medical University: “Data were obtained from a validated questionnaire from 828 young and middle-aged people. McNemar’s test was used to compare the public’s willingness to report under the two scenarios. Chi-square tests and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the determinants of individuals’ willingness to report health insurance fraud in different scenarios. Young and middle-aged people were more likely to report health insurance fraud in a familiar healthcare setting than in an unfamiliar one (McNemar’s ch²=26.51, P < 0.05). Their sense of responsibility for maintaining the security of the health insurance fund, the government’s openness about fraud cases, and the perception of their ability to report had significant positive effects on the public’s willingness to report in both settings (P < 0.05). In a familiar healthcare setting, the more satisfied the public is with government measures to protect whistleblowers, the more likely they are to report (OR = 1.44, P = 0.025). Those who perceive the consequences of health insurance fraud to be serious are more likely to report than those who perceive the consequences to be less serious (OR = 1.61, P = 0.042).”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Individuals are more likely to report health insurance fraud in familiar healthcare settings than in unfamiliar ones, in which their awareness of the severity of the consequences of health insurance fraud and their perceived risk after reporting it play an important role. The government’s publicizing of fraud cases and enhancing the public’s sense of responsibility and ability to maintain the safety of the health insurance fund may be a way to increase their willingness to report, regardless of whether they are familiar with the healthcare setting or not.”

For more information on this research see: What influences the public’s willingness to report health insurance fraud in familiar or unfamiliar healthcare settings? a cross-sectional study of the young and middle-aged people in China. BMC Public Health, 2024,24(1):1-11. (BMC Public Health - http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com). The publisher for BMC Public Health is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-17581-9.

Our news journalists report that more information may be obtained by contacting Jinpeng Xu, School of Health Management, Harbin Medical University. Additional authors for this research include Ting Zhang, Hongyu Zhang, Fangmin Deng, Qi Shi, Jian Liu, Fangting Chen, Jingran He, Qunhong Wu, Zheng Kang, Guomei Tian.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)