Abstract
Professional fee is one of the emergency medical service disbursement lists that private hospitals can submit for compensation. The recent data showed that the professional fee was the highest item disbursed accounted for approximately THB 88 million. The objective of this study, therefore, was to examine the detailed lists, the amount and disbursement of professional fees made by private hospitals under the Universal Coverage for Emergency Patients (UCEP). The disbursement data from private hospitals providing emergency medical services between 1 April and 27 December 2017 were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The findings illustrated that from the list of UCEP professional fees, there were 512 items made by medical doctors (508 items matched with 4,389 items of the Thai Medical Council’s doctors’ fees handbook, and 4 items outside of the handbook). The items of UCEP disbursement procedures in Chapter 10 Obstetrical procedures covered 34.4% of the TMC doctors’ fees list. The proportion of doctors’ fees disbursement accounted for over a half of 512 items (51.4%), disbursing 30,944 times or 36.2% of total transactions, with approximately THB 47 million or 53.7% of total professional fees. The Item on the next treatment for inpatient (code 59009) incurred the highest transactions at 5,465 (17.7%), while the initial inpatient evaluation and management (code 83786) incurred the highest disbursement of over THB 3.8 million (8% of total fee). Chapter 1 Procedures of the head and maxillo-facial area disbursed over THB 12.3 million or a quarter of the total fee. The top three doctors’ fees were the initial inpatient evaluation and management (13.8%), followed by the coronary artery procedure (11.2%) and the medical examination (10%). Doctors’ fees disbursement of emergency medical services from private hospitals covered just approximately a half of total items. Disbursement agencies should, therefore, explicitly define meaning of individual items related to current services in hospitals. In case of hospitals, they should promote training of personnel to correctly entry disbursement information. Moreover, a specific agency within the National Institute for Emergency Medicine should actively update the list of procedures to cover unavailable items.
