Clinical trial NCT05117333: Reminders, Cost Sharing, and Healthcare Use
Official title: Reminders, Cost Sharing, and Healthcare Use
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Health Care Utilization
Health Care Seeking Behavior
Health Behavior
Keywords: Cost-sharing, primary care, health care utilization
Lead sponsor: Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Sponsor class: OTHER_GOV
First posted: 2021-11-11
Enrollment: 47398
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 55
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: This is a randomized controlled trial with three active treatment arms and a control group (not assigned to any treatment, information and services as usual).
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: The investigators conduct a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Finland by sending three types of information letters to households to examine whether the reminder letters affect healthcare use. All letters remind of the importance of seeking care to treat potential health problems.

This study has two primary objectives are: to evaluate the effects of an information nudge reminding on the importance of diagnosing and treating health problems and to evaluate the effects of additionally providing information on the fact that primary care nurse visits have become exempt from copayments. Main outcomes include the number of primary care nurse visits and general practitioner (GP) visits in a six-month follow-up.

Detailed description: This study has two main objectives: (i) to evaluate the effect of an information nudge reminding on the importance of diagnosing and treating health problems and (ii) to evaluate the effect of providing information on the fact that primary care nurse visits have become exempt from co-payments.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Residency in one of the 25 target municipalities as of September 15, 2021.
* Born in 1966 or earlier (aged 55 or more at the end of 2021).
* Living in a household with a maximum of three individuals aged 55 or above.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Individuals living in households (postal address) with more than three individuals aged 55 and above.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Number of nurse visits (as recorded in the Finnish National Register of Primary Health Care Visits)
timeFrame: Six months starting from the date the letters are sent
measure: Number of doctor visits (as recorded in the Finnish National Register of Primary Health Care Visits)
timeFrame: Six months starting from the date the letters are sent
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Number of referrals to specialized care (as recorded in the Finnish National Register of Primary Health Care Visits)
timeFrame: Six months starting from the date the letters are sent
measure: Number of drug prescriptions for newly initiated therapies (as recorded in the Finnish national register for prescribed medicines)
timeFrame: Six months starting from the date the letters are sent
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Helsinki
country: Finland
facility: Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Study officials:
affiliation: Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and University of Turku
name: Lauri Sääksvuori, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: