The importance of type of usual source of care for children's physician access and expenditures.
Despite the overall improvement in access to medical care for low-income people, differences in access to care by income levels remain for children. One reason may be the types of places low-income children often go for care. This paper examines the importance of type of usual source of care-physician's office versus hospital outpatient/emergency room sites and the potential mitigating influence of a specific physician as caregiver at these sites-on physician access and expenditures. Likelihood of a visit, number of visits, distribution of visits for preventive and illness-related care, and likelihood of a preventive visit are examined for all children and for those under 6 years. Implications of different types of usual source of care for costs of physician care are discussed as well.
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009819:Office Visits / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D011203:Poverty; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012494:Sampling Studies; D014481:United States