Verification of key issues in critical illness insurance for urban and rural residents in China: a literature study

  Objective  To identify important, serious and urgent problems to be solved in the implementation of critical illness insurance (CII) for urban and rural residents in China for the improvement of the insurance system.

  Methods  Via China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), We searched studies on CII for urban and rural residents in China published from January 2013 through December 2017. The indexes for the importance (I_i), severity (S_i), and priority (P_i) of all distinguished problems in the implementation of CII were calculated to identify the key issues.

  Results  Based on the summarization of 286 studies retrieved, 39 main problems were verified in the aspects of organization management, medical insurance financing, and fund management. Among the main problems in the implementation of CII, the three key issues were identified, including lack of framework design (R_i = 0.078 1), unbalanced low level and low anti-risk capital financing (R_i = 0.085 1), and narrow coverage unable to meet the requirement the people with the most demand (R_i = 0.050 9).

  Conclusion  System construction, fund raising and insurance coverage are the key issues should be properly managed in the implementation of critical illness insurance for urban and rural residents in China.