Out-of-pocket payments in Swedish health care: how does it affect health care utilization?

The aim of this project is to analyze the total impact of primary and emergency health care utilization due to changes (increases and decreases) in the patient copayment. The project will use a “natural experiment” in a Swedish county council in order to draw conclusions on the causal effect of a price change on health care utilization. To evaluate the impact of the price changes we have collected data on the number of daily physician visits in the treated council as well as in a control council. Comparisons of the changes in the daily number of visits in facilities in Värmland relative to facilities in Örebro yield estimates of the causal effect of the price changes.