Health Insurance Status and Physician Behavior in Germany

Germany has a two-tier system of statutory and primary private health insurance. Both insurance types provide fee-for-service insurance, but chargeable fees for identical services are more than twice as large for privately insured as for statutorily insured patients. Using German SOEP 2002 data, I analyze the effect of insurance status on the insured's number of doctor visits. Conditional on health, privately insured patients are less likely to contact a physician than publicly insured but more frequently visit a doctor following a first contact. This is indirect evidence for the hypothesis that physicians over-treat privately insured patients at least relative to the statutorily insured.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Health Insurance Status and Physician Behavior in Germany ; volume:129 ; number:2 ; year:2009 ; pages:297-307 ; Schmollers Jahrbuch ; 129, Heft 2 (2009), 297-307

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Jürges, Hendrik

Further information

• DOI: 10.3790/schm.129.2.297
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2023013010033928466976
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:35 AM CEST