No abstract

Copayments for primary care services may lead to decreased access to and underconsumption of necessary health care for vulnerable patient groups, such as adolescents. In Norway, in 2010, adolescents aged 12 to 15 years were exempted from copayments for general practitioner (GP) services, and the aim of this study is to estimate whether being exempted from copayments led to increases in GP visits. We apply the synthetic control method using the elastic net regression as a data-driven approach to construct a relevant counterfactual from our pool of age groups not affected by the reform. Data on the number of GP consultations for males and females from 2006 to 2013 is obtained from the Norwegian Health Economics Administration. Our findings suggest that exempting adolescents from copayments increased the number of per person GP consultations by 22.1% among females and 13.8% among males. This indicates that adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 were sensitive to copayments before the reform and females more so than males.

Do co-payments for adolescents affect the number of visits to the physician?To determine the advantages and disadvantages of co-payment for visits to physicians, it is important to quantify the effect of co-payments on the number of consultations. The article uses a change in the co-payment system from 2010, when adolescents between 12 and 15 no longer had to pay a co-payment, in order to estimate the effect of co-payment for this age group. Using a difference-in-difference model and comparing against changes in other age groups, the elimination of co-payments is estimated to have increased GP visits by 13 and 18 percent for males and females respectively. Placebo tests show that the results are robust.Keywords co-payments, difference-in-difference, adolescents, health care services, gp visits For å gjøre en fornuftig avveining om fordeler og ulemper med egenandeler ved legebesøk, er det viktig med kunnskap om i hvor stor grad egenandelen påvirker antall konsultasjoner. Denne artikkelen analyserer endringene i antall legebesøk for unge mellom 12 og 15 år etter 1. januar 2010 da man fjernet egenandelen for denne gruppen. En sammenligning med naerliggende aldersgrupper som ikke opplevet endringer i prisene, tyder på at fjerningen av egenandelen økte antall registrerte legebesøk med rundt 13 % for gutter og 18 % for jenter. Vi diskuterer så mulige problemer med metoden og tallgrunnlaget, men ingen av disse synes å vaere så store at de vil endre hovedkonklusjonen om at egenandeler påvirker antall legekonsultasjoner blant ungdom. egenandel, difference-in-difference, legebesøk, ungdom, helsetjenester This article is downloaded from www.idunn.no. Nøkkelord