IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v94y2010i3p266-272.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perception of the economic value of primary care services: A willingness to pay study

Author

Listed:
  • Martín-Fernández, Jesús
  • Gómez-Gascón, Tomás
  • Oliva-Moreno, Juan
  • del Cura-González, María Isabel
  • Domínguez-Bidagor, Julia
  • Beamud-Lagos, Milagros
  • Sanz-Cuesta, Teresa

Abstract

Objective Identify the economic value the user attributes to the visit to the family physician, in a setting of a National Health System, by the Willingness to Pay (WTP) expressed.Methods Economic evaluation study, by the contingent valuation method. Questions were asked about WTP using a payment card format. Interviews were conducted with 451 subjects, in areas with different socioeconomic characteristics. An ordered probit was used to evaluate model's validity.Results Median WTP expressed was [euro]18 (interquartile range [euro]8-28), not including "zero-answers" of thirty-four subjects (7.5%). This value represents 2% of average adjusted family incomes. Patients with higher incomes or with chronic illnesses presented a probability of 5-14 percentage points of expressing a high WTP. For every point of increase of patient satisfaction, the probability of presenting a WTP in the lowest range decreases 7.0 percentage points. Subjects with a low education level and those older than 65 expressed a lower WTP. Accessibility, risk perception, nationality and having private insurance were not related to the WTP expressed.Conclusions Users of primary care have a clear perception of the economic value of care received from the family physician, even in a framework of providing services financed by taxes and without cost at the moment of use. This value increases in subjects with higher incomes, with greater need for care, or more satisfied.

Suggested Citation

  • Martín-Fernández, Jesús & Gómez-Gascón, Tomás & Oliva-Moreno, Juan & del Cura-González, María Isabel & Domínguez-Bidagor, Julia & Beamud-Lagos, Milagros & Sanz-Cuesta, Teresa, 2010. "Perception of the economic value of primary care services: A willingness to pay study," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 266-272, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:94:y:2010:i:3:p:266-272
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(09)00286-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mandy Ryan & Verity Watson, 2009. "Comparing welfare estimates from payment card contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 389-401, April.
    2. B O'Brien & A Gafni, 1996. "When Do the "Dollars" Make Sense? Toward a Conceptual Framework for Contingent Valuation Studies in Health Care," Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis Working Paper Series 1996-22, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA), McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
    3. Richard D. Smith, 2003. "Construction of the contingent valuation market in health care:a critical assessment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(8), pages 609-628, August.
    4. Greene, William H. & Hensher, David A., 2003. "A latent class model for discrete choice analysis: contrasts with mixed logit," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 681-698, September.
    5. O'Shea, Eamon & Gannon, Brenda & Kennelly, Brendan, 2008. "Eliciting preferences for resource allocation in mental health care in Ireland," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(2-3), pages 359-370, December.
    6. Trine Bergmo & Silje Wangberg, 2007. "Patients’ willingness to pay for electronic communication with their general practitioner," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 8(2), pages 105-110, June.
    7. Borghi, Josephine & Jan, Stephen, 2008. "Measuring the benefits of health promotion programmes: Application of the contingent valuation method," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 235-248, August.
    8. Lostao, Lourdes & Regidor, Enrique & Geyer, Siegfried & Aïach, Pierre, 2007. "Patient cost sharing and social inequalities in access to health care in three western European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 367-376, July.
    9. Josephine Borghi, 2008. "Aggregation rules for cost–benefit analysis: a health economics perspective," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(7), pages 863-875, July.
    10. Mataria, Awad & Giacaman, Rita & Khatib, Rana & Moatti, Jean-Paul, 2006. "Impoverishment and patients' "willingness" and "ability" to pay for improving the quality of health care in Palestine: An assessment using the contingent valuation method," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 312-328, February.
    11. Richard D. Smith, 2008. "Contingent valuation in health care: does it matter how the ‘good’ is described?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(5), pages 607-617, May.
    12. Costa-Font, Joan & Rovira-Forns, Joan, 2008. "Who is willing to pay for long-term care insurance in Catalonia?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 72-84, April.
    13. Jan Abel Olsen & Richard D. Smith, 2001. "Theory versus practice: a review of ‘willingness‐to‐pay’ in health and health care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(1), pages 39-52, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jesús Martín-Fernández & Mª Isabel del Cura-González & Gemma Rodríguez-Martínez & Gloria Ariza-Cardiel & Javier Zamora & Tomás Gómez-Gascón & Elena Polentinos-Castro & Francisco Javier Pérez-Rivas & J, 2013. "Economic Valuation of Health Care Services in Public Health Systems: A Study about Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Nursing Consultations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-9, April.
    2. Jesús Martín-Fernández & Gloria Ariza-Cardiel & Luz Mª Peña-Longobardo & Elena Polentinos-Castro & Juan Oliva-Moreno & Ana Isabel Gil-Lacruz & Héctor Medina-Palomino & Isabel del Cura-González, 2017. "“Gaining or losing”: The importance of the perspective in primary care health services valuation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(12), pages 1-14, December.
    3. Christy Pu & Yu-Chen Tseng & Gau-Jun Tang & Yen-Hsiung Lin & Chien-Heng Lin & I-Jen Wang, 2021. "Perception and Willingness to Maintain Continuity of Care by Parents of Children with Asthma in Taiwan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-11, March.
    4. Mihic, Marko M. & Todorovic, Marija Lj. & Obradovic, Vladimir Lj., 2014. "Economic analysis of social services for the elderly in Serbia: Two sides of the same coin," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 9-21.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jesús Martín-Fernández & Mª Isabel del Cura-González & Gemma Rodríguez-Martínez & Gloria Ariza-Cardiel & Javier Zamora & Tomás Gómez-Gascón & Elena Polentinos-Castro & Francisco Javier Pérez-Rivas & J, 2013. "Economic Valuation of Health Care Services in Public Health Systems: A Study about Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Nursing Consultations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-9, April.
    2. Alene Sze Jing Yong & Yi Heng Lim & Mark Wing Loong Cheong & Ednin Hamzah & Siew Li Teoh, 2022. "Willingness-to-pay for cancer treatment and outcome: a systematic review," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(6), pages 1037-1057, August.
    3. Halkos, George, 2012. "The use of contingent valuation in assessing marine and coastal ecosystems’ water quality: A review," MPRA Paper 42183, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:2:y:2007:i::p:96-106 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Dorte Gyrd‐Hansen & Mette Lundsby Jensen & Trine Kjaer, 2014. "Framing The Willingness‐To‐Pay Question: Impact On Response Patterns And Mean Willingness To Pay," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 550-563, May.
    6. Laura J. Damschroder & Peter A. Ubel & Jason Riis & Dylan M. Smith, 2007. "An alternative approach for eliciting willingness-to-pay: A randomized Internet trial," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 2, pages 96-106, April.
    7. Greenberg, Dan & Bakhai, Ameet & Neumann, Peter J. & Cohen, David J., 2004. "Willingness to pay for avoiding coronary restenosis and repeat revascularization: results from a contingent valuation study," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 207-216, November.
    8. Jesús Martín-Fernández & Gloria Ariza-Cardiel & Luz Mª Peña-Longobardo & Elena Polentinos-Castro & Juan Oliva-Moreno & Ana Isabel Gil-Lacruz & Héctor Medina-Palomino & Isabel del Cura-González, 2017. "“Gaining or losing”: The importance of the perspective in primary care health services valuation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(12), pages 1-14, December.
    9. Whynes, David K. & Sach, Tracey H., 2007. "WTP and WTA: Do people think differently?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 946-957, September.
    10. Peter J. Neumann & Joshua T. Cohen & James K. Hammitt & Thomas W. Concannon & Hannah R. Auerbach & ChiHui Fang & David M. Kent, 2012. "Willingness‐to‐pay for predictive tests with no immediate treatment implications: a survey of US residents," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 238-251, March.
    11. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Luchini & Christophe Muller & Erik Schokkaert, 2013. "Equivalent Income And Fair Evaluation Of Health Care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 711-729, June.
    12. Franz Hackl & Gerald J. Pruckner, 2005. "Warm glow, free‐riding and vehicle neutrality in a health‐related contingent valuation study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 293-306, March.
    13. Richard D. Smith, 2008. "Contingent valuation in health care: does it matter how the ‘good’ is described?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(5), pages 607-617, May.
    14. Trine Bergmo & Silje Wangberg, 2007. "Patients’ willingness to pay for electronic communication with their general practitioner," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 8(2), pages 105-110, June.
    15. Schwarzinger, Michaël & Carrat, Fabrice & Luchini, Stéphane, 2009. ""If you have the flu symptoms, your asymptomatic spouse may better answer the willingness-to-pay question": Evidence from a double-bounded dichotomous choice model with heterogeneous anchori," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 873-884, July.
    16. Smith, Richard D. & Richardson, Jeff, 2005. "Can we estimate the `social' value of a QALY?: Four core issues to resolve," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 77-84, September.
    17. Cawley, John, 2008. "Contingent valuation analysis of willingness to pay to reduce childhood obesity," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 281-292, July.
    18. Mandy Ryan & Mabelle Amaya‐Amaya, 2005. "‘Threats’ to and hopes for estimating benefits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(6), pages 609-619, June.
    19. Richard D. Smith, 2007. "The role of 'reference goods' in contingent valuation: should we help respondents to 'construct' their willingness to pay?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1319-1332.
    20. Alessandro Mengoni & Chiara Seghieri & Sabina Nuti, 2013. "The application of discrete choice experiments in health economics: a systematic review of the literature," Working Papers 201301, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa, Istituto di Management.
    21. Olsen, Jan Abel & Donaldson, Cam & Shackley, Phil, 2005. "Implicit versus explicit ranking: On inferring ordinal preferences for health care programmes based on differences in willingness-to-pay," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 990-996, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:94:y:2010:i:3:p:266-272. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.