Copayments for doctor visits in Germany and the probability of visiting a physician - Evidence from a natural experiment

Helmut Farbmacher

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: The German health care reform of 2004 imposes a charge of 10 Euro for the first visit to a doctor in each quarter of the year. At first glance, there is no inhibiting effect of this fee on utilization in the German Socio-Economic Panel. However, this study reveals that the true effect is diluted by a special characteristic of the fee. Exploiting random variation in the interview date, this study finds a substantial effect of the new fee on the probability of visiting a physician. In addition, the identification strategy makes it possible to disentangle this effect from the influence of the contemporaneous increase of copayments for prescription drugs.

Keywords: copayment; moral hazard; differences-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-07-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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