Determinants of physician's office visits and potential effects of co-payments: evidence from Austria

The objective of this study is to analyse determinants of physician office visits and potential effects of co-payments in Austria.

Based on survey data, the number of annual physician office visits is regressed on a set of explanatory variable such as income, communication behaviour in waiting room, travel time, gender, age, presence of chronic diseases and connectedness to family members. It was then examined how those determinants are affected by hypothetical co-payments in the range of €5 to €200.

Our results suggest a negative impact of income and family connectedness on doctor's visits. On the other hand, age, morbidity and active communication behaviour in the waiting room are positively associated with office visits. The significant impact of both income and active communication behaviour on the number of doctor's visits disappears when significant co-payments greater than €50 are introduced.

Higher co-payments would reduce healthcare service utilization in Austria mainly because of a demand reduction of poorer patients. Another key finding of our study is that the desire to chat with peers in the waiting room is another significant driver of physician office visits. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.