O2 Muu julkaisu
Effects of Nurse Visit Copayments: Does the Primary Care Use of the Poor Respond More?
Tekijät: Haaga Tapio, Böckerman Petri, Kortelainen Mika, Tukiainen Janne
Julkaisuvuosi: 2022
Verkko-osoite: https://osf.io/m4c9t
We analyze the effects of a staggered adoption and a later nationwide abolition of a nurse visit copayment of approximately 10 euros on curative primary care use in Finnish adult population. We use difference-in-difference and event study methods and focus on the potential heterogeneity of the effects by income level. We find that the adoption reduces nurse visits by 9% to 12% during a one-year follow-up. There is notable heterogeneity in absolute terms: the number of visits decreases more at the lower end of the income distribution. However, such heterogeneity is less clear in relative terms. The estimates on the number of general practitioner (GP) visits are negative but close to zero and often insignificant (−2% to −5%). Regarding the nationwide abolition, we do not obtain clear causal conclusions since imposing a parallel trends assumption does not seem to be reasonable based on pre-trend patterns.