Table 1

Comparison of General Practice Use in the Year Before and the Year After Policy Change

Setting and Payment Status	Year Before Policy Change					Year After Policy Change

	All Ages		Aged <6 y			All Ages		Aged <6 y

	Patients	Visits	Patients	Visits	Visits per Patient	Patients	Visits	Patients	Visits	Visits per Patient
Daytime
Out of pocket	15,828	39,457	2,415	6,053	2.51	15,842	39,419	1,011^a	1,753^a	1.73
Free of charge	13,991	60,847	1,142	3,736	3.27	15,148	67,187	3,347^a	10,847^a	3.24
Total^b	29,951	100,304	3,540	9,789	2.77	31,143	106,606	3,874	12,600	3.25
Out of hours
Out of pocket	14,782	17,365	5,023	6,565	1.31	12,307	13,603	1,456^a	1,619^a	1.11
Free of charge	21,558	31,673	5,017	8,484	1.69	27,569	40,704	10,824^a	17,290^a	1.60
Unknown	299	308	34	38	1.12	339	365	41	49	1.20
Total^b	36,300	49,346	9,898	15,087	1.52	39,613	54,672	11,890	18,958	1.59

↵a Difference between period before and period after policy change was significant (P <.001).
↵b Total number of patients does not equal sum of those in each payment cohort (out-of-pocket and free-of-charge cohorts) as some patients moved between cohorts during the study and thus may appear in both.