Does a Free Office Visit Affect Primary Care-Seeking Behavior? A Study of New Exchange Health Plan Enrollees in Mississippi.

BACKGROUND: Given the positive association between primary care and overall health, several health plans are offering doctors' visits without patient copay, with the intent to increase primary care use. However, the effectiveness of these offers has not been established in the literature.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a free primary care provider (PCP) office visit offered by a health plan on primary care-seeking behaviors.

METHODS: This nonrandomized concurrent control study used event/trials logistic regression to compare the differences in primary care utilization between new exchange enrollees in Mississippi who were offered a free nonpreventive PCP visit and concurrent controls from Georgia and Tennessee who were not offered a free visit, between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2014, which was the first year of the exchange plans. Regression models adjusted for age, sex, plan type, rural-urban designation, and enrollment month. Visits to alternative sites of care were also assessed.

RESULTS: The adjusted number of nonpreventive PCP visits did not differ between the states (odds ratio [OR], 0.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.97-1.00). Mississippi residents were significantly more likely to go to the emergency department than the Georgia-Tennessee cohort (OR, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.28-1.39), but they were less likely to visit an urgent care center (OR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.09-0.11) or a retail clinic (OR, 0.13; 95% CI, 0.11-0.17) than their counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite being eligible for a free nonpreventive visit, enrollees in Mississippi were no more likely than their counterparts in Georgia and Tennessee to visit a PCP. These findings suggest that removing the cost barrier alone may be insufficient to change primary care-seeking behaviors, and other barriers to care should be addressed.