Table 5.

Three-level linear regression model analysis of annual medical expenditures (n=478 051)

	Parameter estimate	SE	χ2	P values
Fixed factors
Constant	1.842	0.063	862.479	<0.001
Gender (baseline:male)
Female	0.003	0.002	5.051	0.025
Age (years)	0.003	0.001	4690.838	<0.001
Family size (person)	0.001	0.001	1.536	0.215
Distance to CH (km)	−0.001	0.001	0.276	0.599
Time to CH (min)	0.001	0.001	0.006	0.938
Capacity of TH	−0.073	0.030	5.797	0.016
Geography (baseline:plains)	0.013	0.020	0.423	0.515
Traffic condition (baseline:national)	0.004	0.022	0.036	0.849
Disease category (baseline:respiratory)
Cancer	0.759	0.008	8286.833	<0.001
ENT disease	−0.095	0.003	1084.129	<0.001
Circulatory disease	0.303	0.004	4948.426	<0.001
Digestive disease	0.024	0.004	11.12	0.001
Urinary disease	0.304	0.006	2197.804	<0.001
Endocrinology disease	−0.070	0.007	6.756	0.009
Haematological disorders	0.113	0.010	127.488	<0.001
Bones and muscles	0.030	0.008	10.168	0.001
Obstetrics and gynaecology	0.390	0.005	6056.819	<0.001
Else	0.126	0.003	0.294	0.588
Annual length of stay (days)	0.015	0.001	18 287.060	<0.001
Inpatient level (times)
Outside the county	0.275	0.002	15 149.683	<0.001
County	0.064	0.001	5024.366	<0.001
Township	0.260	0.003	8241.838	<0.001
Outpatient level (times)
County	0.134	0.001	62 795.795	<0.001
Township	0.049	0.001	56 609.642	<0.001
Clinic	0.031	0.001	82 166.996	<0.001
Random factors
Town variance	0.005	0.002	9.114	0.003
Village variance	0.007	0.000	298.486	<0.001
Patient scale parameter	1	0.00	–	–