Utilization of Chinese medicine for respiratory discomforts by patients with a medical history of tuberculosis in Taiwan

Yang, Su-Tso; Lin, Yi-Rong; Wu, Mei-Yao; Chiang, Jen-Huai; Yang, Pei-Shan; Hsia, Te-Chun; Yen, Hung-Rong

The NHI program was established in Taiwan in 1995. The program was highly representative of samples of Taiwan's general population because the reimbursement policy is universal and mandatory. The coverage rate of this compulsory health insurance program reached almost 95% in 1997 [26] and 99.4% at the end of 2010 in Taiwan [27] . CM services that are reimbursed in the NHI program include Chinese medicines, acupuncture, moxibustion, and Chinese traumatology therapy [28] . The National Health Insurance Administration provided the registration files and original claims data to the National Health Research Institutes, which established and managed the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) for research purposes. This study was based in part on data from the NHIRD. It contains data comprising demographic characteristics, medical care facilities, outpatient and inpatient visits, visit dates, diagnostic codes, management, prescriptions and medical expenditures. We acquired a randomly selected sample consisting of one million individuals (Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000; LHID 2000) from the NHIRD managed and released by the National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan. The diagnostic codes were from the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) formats.