Do Gatekeeping Schemes Influence Health Care Utilization Behavior Among Patients With Different Educational Background? An Analysis of 13 European Countries

Abstract

Gatekeeping has been introduced to regulate health care demand and to decrease existing educational inequalities in specialist utilization. This article aims to test whether these policy intentions are met effectively. By pooling two waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), this study performs a cross-country comparison of the impact of two different types of gatekeeping—obligatory referral and skip-and-pay schemes—on absolute and relative general practitioner and specialist utilization levels as well as their moderating effect on inequalities in health care utilization according to education. Results imply that skip-and-pay gatekeeping schemes are not successful in decreasing specialist use and, moreover, aggravate inequalities in health care use, according to education. These findings question the role of choice in health care and call for instruments other than gatekeeping to make health care more efficient and to buffer existing educational inequalities in health care use.