Changing Demand for Healthcare in India

Healthcare consumers may be behaving to some extent based on the nature of healthcare being a necessity or otherwise. The choice of either of public and private providers may depend upon factors like availability, accessibility, cost and quality. To some extent, this is revealed through their elasti...

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Main Author: Brijesh C Purohit
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Light House Polyclinic Mangalore 2020-02-01
Series:Online Journal of Health & Allied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.ojhas.org/issue72/2019-4-9.html
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author Brijesh C Purohit
author_facet Brijesh C Purohit
author_sort Brijesh C Purohit
collection DOAJ
description Healthcare consumers may be behaving to some extent based on the nature of healthcare being a necessity or otherwise. The choice of either of public and private providers may depend upon factors like availability, accessibility, cost and quality. To some extent, this is revealed through their elasticities based on income, cost, quality and socio-economic factors. Objective of this paper is to explore the demand for healthcare services in India and estimate consumers’ elasticities to these factors. Using logit results we find that an individual may choose his preference for private or public based on distance of facility from residence. It may also depend whether it is rural or urban area and whether the income levels of state are below or above all India average. Comparing our results for two all India surveys, it is observed that people’s perception and thus preferences are mostly based on choices of nearby location, suitable timings, presence of medical personnel and less waiting time. The presence of insurance either by a national or state sponsored scheme seems to have changed the nature of healthcare demand in India from a stark necessity to a matter of better choice.
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spelling doaj.art-0a0f6267cc994dbfb22af82e2a5eb7452022-12-22T02:49:07ZengLight House Polyclinic MangaloreOnline Journal of Health & Allied Sciences0972-59970972-59972020-02-01184Changing Demand for Healthcare in IndiaBrijesh C Purohit0Madras School of Economics, Kottur, Chennai 600025, INDIA.Healthcare consumers may be behaving to some extent based on the nature of healthcare being a necessity or otherwise. The choice of either of public and private providers may depend upon factors like availability, accessibility, cost and quality. To some extent, this is revealed through their elasticities based on income, cost, quality and socio-economic factors. Objective of this paper is to explore the demand for healthcare services in India and estimate consumers’ elasticities to these factors. Using logit results we find that an individual may choose his preference for private or public based on distance of facility from residence. It may also depend whether it is rural or urban area and whether the income levels of state are below or above all India average. Comparing our results for two all India surveys, it is observed that people’s perception and thus preferences are mostly based on choices of nearby location, suitable timings, presence of medical personnel and less waiting time. The presence of insurance either by a national or state sponsored scheme seems to have changed the nature of healthcare demand in India from a stark necessity to a matter of better choice.https://www.ojhas.org/issue72/2019-4-9.htmlhealthcareavailabilityaccessibilityqualitysocio-economic factors
spellingShingle Brijesh C Purohit
Changing Demand for Healthcare in India
Online Journal of Health & Allied Sciences
healthcare
availability
accessibility
quality
socio-economic factors
title Changing Demand for Healthcare in India
title_full Changing Demand for Healthcare in India
title_fullStr Changing Demand for Healthcare in India
title_full_unstemmed Changing Demand for Healthcare in India
title_short Changing Demand for Healthcare in India
title_sort changing demand for healthcare in india
topic healthcare
availability
accessibility
quality
socio-economic factors
url https://www.ojhas.org/issue72/2019-4-9.html
work_keys_str_mv AT brijeshcpurohit changingdemandforhealthcareinindia