The Demand for Dental Care

Inclusion of dental coverage in a number of National Health Insurance bills has raised questions about the determinants of demand for dental services, particularly, the sensitivity of demand to out-of-pocket cost. This paper relies on a 1970 national cross sectional survey of individuals to estimate demand for dental services. With full coverage (no out-of-pocket cost), the predicted number of visits is over twice as high for adults and over three times as high for children as are their demands with no dental insurance coverage. Full or partial coverage will increase considerably the demand for dental care, even if coverage is limited to children and if copayments and deductibles are imposed. With supply unaltered, the short-term effects of this excess demand will include some combination of price increases, increased queues, changes in the nature of the dental services performed, or other forms of nonprice rationing.

Use of outpatient mental health services by a general population with health insurance coverage

Characteristics of use of mental health services by 4,254 persons enrolled in the Rand Health Insurance Study were analyzed in an attempt to predict patterns of use by a general population with assigned insurance coverage. Families in the study, whose members ranged in age from birth through 62 years, were randomly assigned to one of 14 insurance plans covering a wide variety of services by all licensed provider groups. During a one-year period less than 4 percent of the enrollees visited a mental health specialist, and only 7.1 percent saw any provider for mental health care. About half of those receiving outpatient mental health care visited general medical providers only. Annual outpatient mental health expenses per enrollee were about $25 (1983 dollars). The authors compare their findings with those of other studies and discuss their implications for insurance coverage of mental health services

How cost sharing affects the use of ambulatory mental health services

The less generous insurance coverage for mental health care has generated some controversy. The major unresolved question is how the demand for outpatient mental health care responds to cost sharing. We used data from a randomized trial of fee-for-service health insurance for the nonelderly to address this question. The study enrolled 5809 persons. The results are based on 19 819 person-years of data. One hundred thirty-three percent more is spent on outpatient psychotherapy when care is free to patients than when they pay 95% of the fee, subject to an annual catastrophic limit. But, the absolute level of expenditure is low on all plans; $32 per person per year with free care. The response to psychotherapy services to cost sharing is insignificantly larger than that for outpatient general medical services. We found no evidence that more generous coverage for outpatient psychotherapy decreases total health expenditures

Sociodemographic factors and the use of outpatient mental health services

What are the effects of sociodemographic factors on the use of outpatient mental health services when different demographic groups have identical health insurance coverage? The authors answer this question using data from the Rand Health Insurance Experiment. Health insurance was randomly assigned to families representative of the nonaged, noninstitutionalized civilian population in six U.S. sites. Income has no significant total effect on use when all income groups have the same coverage. When the effects of variables correlated with socioeconomic status are removed, users with higher socioeconomic status are significantly more likely to choose a mental health specialist rather than only general medical providers for their mental health care (P less than 0.05); among those who visit mental health specialists, those with higher socioeconomic status incur significantly greater expenses (P less than 0.10). Women use significantly more mental health services than men (P less than 0.05), who in turn use significantly more mental health services than children (P less than 0.05), even after controlling for demographic factors, health status, and insurance coverage. Similarly, there are large differences (roughly sixfold) by site in outpatient mental health expenses even when all sites have identical coverage

Cost-sharing and the use of general medical physicians for outpatient mental health care

Many patients with emotional disorders receive their mental health care from general medical physicians. In this article, we examine differences in costs and style between mental health care delivered by mental health specialists and that provided by general medical physicians, and the sensitivity to insurance of the patient\u27s choice of mental health care provider. We use data from a randomized trial of cost-sharing, the RAND Health Insurance Experiment. Even when all outpatient mental health care was free (up to 52 visits a year), one-half of the users of outpatient mental health services visited general medical providers only. This half accounted for only 5 percent of outpatient mental health care expenditures, because the treatment delivered by general medical providers was much less intensive than that delivered by mental health specialists. Mental health status, at enrollment, was similar for those who received their mental health care from either provider group. Despite the large difference in cost of care, the choice of provider (mental health specialist versus general medical provider) was not sensitive to the generosity of insurance