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Published in: BMC Health Services Research 1/2024

Open Access 01-12-2024 | COVID-19 | Research

Changes in long-term care insurance revenue among service providers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors: Tomoko Ito, Xueying Jin, Makiko Tomita, Shu Kobayashi, Nanako Tamiya

Published in: BMC Health Services Research | Issue 1/2024

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Abstract

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted peoples’ health-related behaviors, especially those of older adults, who have restricted their activities in order to avoid contact with others. Moreover, the pandemic has caused concerns in long-term care insurance (LTCI) providers regarding management and financial issues. This study aimed to examine the changes in revenues among LTCI service providers in Japan during the pandemic and analyze its impact on different types of services.

Methods

In this study, we used anonymized data from “Kaipoke,” a management support platform for older adult care operators provided by SMS Co., Ltd. Kaipoke provides management support services to more than 27,400 care service offices nationwide and has been introduced in many home-care support offices. The data used in this study were extracted from care plans created by care managers on the Kaipoke platform. To examine the impact of the pandemic, an interrupted time-series analysis was conducted in which the date of the beginning of the pandemic was set as the prior independent variable.

Results

The participating providers were care management providers (n = 5,767), home-visit care providers (n = 3,506), home-visit nursing providers (n = 971), and adult day care providers (n = 4,650). The results revealed that LTCI revenues decreased significantly for care management providers, home-visit nursing providers, and adult day care providers after the COVID-19 pandemic began. The largest decrease was an average base of USD − 1668.8 in adult day care.

Conclusion

The decrease in revenue among adult day care providers was particularly concerning in terms of the sustainability of their business. This decrease in revenue may have made it difficult to retain personnel, and staff may have needed to be laid off as a result. Although this study has limitations, it may provide useful suggestions for countermeasures in such scenarios, in addition to support conducted measures.
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Metadata
Title
Changes in long-term care insurance revenue among service providers during the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors
Tomoko Ito
Xueying Jin
Makiko Tomita
Shu Kobayashi
Nanako Tamiya
Publication date
01-12-2024
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Health Services Research / Issue 1/2024
Electronic ISSN: 1472-6963
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-10832-4

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