Research seminar “Socioeconomic waiting time for hospital admissions” by Oddvar Kaarbøe

Description

The paper uses information about 435 000 planned inpatient admissions to Norwegian hospitals 2011-2013 to examine how waiting time depends on the income and education level of the patient. Independent of whether patients are admitted directly from general practitioners or via outpatient departments of hospitals, patients with high income and high education wait shorter than people with less income and education.​ Our results show that having a generous government financed health care system without patient payment does not by itself achieve equality of treatment.