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Private health insurance, mental health and service use in Australia
Liana S Leach1, Peter Butterworth, Harvey Whiteford
1Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Liana.Leach@anu.edu.au
Objective:
To report on the private health insurance (PHI) status of individuals with and without a mental health problem, and examine whether PHI status is associated with access to psychological services.
Methods:
This is a descriptive study of nationally representative population-based data collected in 2009 (HILDA) with participants aged 15-93 (n = 13,301). Key measures included: PHI status (categorised as 'hospital cover only', 'extras cover only', or 'both hospital and extras cover'); mental health status (categorised as 'have a mental health problem' or 'do not have a mental health problem' using the mental health index (MHI) of the medical outcomes study short form); mental health service use (access to a mental health professional (psychologist/psychiatrist) in the past 12 months categorised as 'yes' or 'no').
Results:
Individuals with a mental health problem were less likely to have PHI than those without a mental health problem. However, PHI was not associated with access to a mental health professional in the past 12 months.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest that while the discrepancy in PHI status is a marker of inequity between those with and without a mental health problem, it is not a key factor in facilitating access to mental health services.
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