The purpose of this paper is to analyze and identify time price as the key variable, which determines the utilization of primary health care services in the Korean rural area. Time and socioeconomic variables including income, education, age, sex, and medical institutions were selected and regression on the visit of outpatients to primary health care institutions in sample region.
The results show that time price, or the opportunity cost consisting of waiting time for interviewing physician and traveling time of patients to the institutions from his home, plays a major role in facilitating the utilization of primary health care services by residents in rural area. This is because the geographic maldistribution of medical institutions in rural area, namely scattered very distantly, pushes up time price enough to deter the accessibility of rural out-patients to primary health care.
To promote the accessibility of rural residents to primary health care, it could be recommended that government policy be put on pulling down time cost as well as money price.
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