The disutility of waiting time: Evidence from a Public Primary

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between satisfaction with waiting times in a Public Primary Health Care Service and a host of individual variables as well as market determinants. Since waiting time is imposing an opportunity cost on individuals, we model how agents derive different levels of utility and thus report degrees of satisfaction accounting for differences on opportunity cost components. The empirical research draws upon data from the 2002 Survey for Improving Patient Satisfaction with the Health Care Service in Andalucía. Ordered probit models are used to estimate different indirect utility functions specifications for the whole sample, as well as for men and women sub-samples and different age categories. Results suggest that there is evidence to support the existence of different behavior within both sex and age groups and that provided healthcare characteristics also shape utility and satisfaction. JEL classification: I11, I18 Key words: Disutility/Utility, waiting times, primary health care, socio-economic factors