The effects of patients' fee payment source on the duration of outpatient psychotherapy

Investigated the effects of fee payment source alone, as well as in combination with selected demographic factors (race, sex, education, and socioeconomic status), on the duration of outpatient psychotherapy. One hundred and sixty outpatients receiving treatment at a medical center based community mental health center served as Ss. These Ss were divided into four groups: Medicaid, insurance, insurance plus self-payment, and scaled self-payment only. Univariate results indicated that patients who paid a scaled fee had significantly more sessions than those whose fee was paid by Medicaid. Multivariate results, however, indicated that education and sex, which were highly correlated with fee payment source, accounted for most of the variance in treatment duration.