How great is the medical burden of disease on the aged? Research based on “System of Health Account 2011”

BACKGROUND: The aging of population and the burden of disease among the aged have become one of the hot topics in the international health, and also brought tremendous pressure in the development of health service. METHODS: A total of 1,377,681 patients aged 65 years and over were collected with multistage stratified cluster random sampling in 252 medical institutions in Liaoning China, and “System of Health Account 2011” was conducted to analyze the expenditure of disease for the elderly. Influencing factors were performed using multiple stepwise regression analysis. RESULTS: The curative care expenditure for the aged was 233.18 billion RMB. Most of the expenditure for the old people was in hospital. Moreover, by the disease, the highest expenditure was incurred by non-communicable diseases. The financing scheme of the aged was concentrated on social health insurance and family health expenditure. Hospitalization expenditure was significantly associated with length of stay, operation, etc. CONCLUSIONS: This study intends to capture large data from various medical institutions with a new accounting system. The finding illustrates that the burden of old people is still heavy.