The Effect of Primary Care Visits on Health Care Utilization: Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Cathy J. Bradley, David Neumark and Lauryn Saxe Walker

No 24100, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We conducted a randomized controlled trial, enrolling low-income uninsured adults in Virginia (United States), to determine whether cash incentives are effective at encouraging a primary care provider (PCP) visit, and at lowering utilization and costs. Subjects were randomized to four groups: untreated controls, and one of three incentive arms with incentives of $0, $25, or $50 for visiting a PCP within six months of group assignment. We used the exogenous variation generated by the experiment to obtain causal evidence on the effects of a PCP visit. We observed modest reductions in non-urgent emergency department use and increased outpatient use, but no reductions in overall costs. These findings in utilization are consistent with the expectation that PCPs offer an alternative to the emergency department for non-emergent conditions. Total costs did not decline because any savings from avoiding the emergency department were offset by increased outpatient utilization.

JEL-codes: I12 I14 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hea
Note: EH PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24100.pdf (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:nbr:nberwo:24100

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24100

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().