Perceived access in a managed care environment: determinants of satisfaction

With increasing competition in the local and regional healthcare markets, and growing interest in assessing the effectiveness of services and patient outcomes, satisfaction measures are becoming prominent in evaluating the performance of the healthcare system. This study examines the independent effect of predisposing, enabling and medical need factors on perceived access to care with particular focus on insurance plans. A survey questionnaire is developed to investigate access limitations at three levels: (1) the health plan, (2) the individual provider(s) and (3) the healthcare organization. In addition, shortage of providers, residents' perceptions of their health status, satisfaction with access to care and socio-demographic indicators are incorporated into the analysis. Multivariate logistic regression is used to assess the independent effects of the above factors on a dichotomous dependent variable--residents' overall satisfaction with access to healthcare services. The most salient determinants of overall satisfaction with access to care were the type of health insurance plan, cost of insurance premiums, co-payments, difficulty with obtaining referrals, self-rated general health, the opportunity cost of taking time to see a provider (measured by the loss of hourly wages), marital status and the age factor over 80 years.