Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
HERO Online Working Paper Series,
University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme
No 2005:2: Regulation versus practice - The impact of accessibility on the use of specialist health care in Norway
Tor Iversen () and Gry Stine Kopperud
Additional contact information
Tor Iversen: Institute of Health Management and Health Economics, Postal: P.O. Box 1089 Blindern, NO-0317 Oslo, Norway
Gry Stine Kopperud: Institute of Health Management and Health Economics, Postal: P.O. Box 1089 Blindern, NO-0317 Oslo, Norway
Abstract: In Norway specialized health services are provided both by public hospitals and by privately practicing specialists who have a contract with the public sector. Patients’ co-payment is the same irrespective of the type of provider they visit. The ambition of equity in the allocation of medical care is high among all political parties. The instruments for auditing whether these goals are fulfilled are not equally ambitious. The objective of the present study is to explore whether laws and regulations that govern the allocation of specialist health care resources in fact are fulfilled. Panel data from the Survey of Living Conditions are merged with data on capacity and spatial access to primary and specialist care. We find that accessibility and socio-economic variables play a considerable role in determining both the probability of at least one visit and the number of visits to a private specialist. A person with a higher university degree living in a municipality with the highest value of the geographical accessibility index has a 46%-points higher probability of at least one visit to a private specialist compared with a person with junior high living in a municipality with the lowest value of the accessibility index. With regard to visits to a hospital outpatient department these variables are not found to have significant effects. We conclude that public ambitions and regulations are fulfilled for specialist services provided by public hospitals. With regard to the provision of services provided by publicly financed private specialists we find a discrepancy between public goals and surveyed practice.
Keywords: specialist health services; utilization; equity; private/public provision; survey data
30 pages, June 7, 2009
Full text files
HERO2005_2.pdf
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