Willingness to Pay for Cataract Surgery Provided by a Senior Surgeon in Urban Southern China

Mei Wang, Yajing Zuo, Xianhua Lin, Yunlan Ling, Xiaofeng Lin, Mingge Li, Ecosse Lamoureux and Yingfeng Zheng

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-9

Abstract: Purpose: To study willingness to pay for cataract surgery and surgical service provided by a senior cataract surgeon in urban Southern China. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional willingness-to-pay (WTP) interview using bidding formats. Two-hundred eleven persons with presenting visual impairment in either eye due to cataract were enrolled at a tertiary eye hospital. Participants underwent a comprehensive eye examination and a WTP interview for both surgery and service provided by a senior surgeon. Demographic information, socioeconomic status and clinical data were recorded. Results: Among 211 (98% response rate) persons completing the interview, 53.6% were women and 80.6% were retired. About 72.2% had a monthly income lower than 1000 renminbi (US $161). A total of 189 (89.6%) were willing to pay for cataract and the median amount of WTP was 6000 renminbi (US$968). And 102 (50.7%) were willing to pay additional fees for surgery performed by a senior surgeon, and the median amount of WTP was 500 renminbi (US$81). In regression models adjusting for age and gender, persons with preexisting eye diseases other than cataract, were more likely to pay for cataract surgery and service provided by a senior surgeon (P = 0.04 for both). Conclusions: In urban China, cataract patients, especially those with preexisting eye conditions, are willing to pay additional fees for a senior surgeon. Moving to a system where the price of cataract surgery is proportional to the consultant’ skill and expertise is possible and may have a potential impact on waiting list and quality of eye care. Further studies are needed to examine the impact of such pricing system on attitudes and choices of cataract patients.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142858 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 42858&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0142858

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142858

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().