Impact of Enhanced Outpatient Pooling Level on Healthcare Utilization, Costs and Fund Expenditures in China: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis

The improvement of outpatient pooling level for urban employees had positive effects on stimulating the demand for outpatient medical services, reducing OOP costs, and maintaining the sustainability of UEBMI funds, while the long-term effect was weakened, and the substitution effect between inpatient and outpatient healthcare was insignificant. There is an urgent need to improve the outpatient benefits, establish a value-based outpatient payment method and an intelligent medical insurance fund monitoring system.