Users’ perception of quality as a driver of private healthcare use in Mexico: Insights from the People’s Voice Survey

Abstract

Objective The Mexican government has pursued multiple initiatives to improve healthcare coverage and financial protection. Yet, out-of-pocket health spending and use of private sector providers in Mexico remains high. In this paper, we sought to describe the characteristics of public and private healthcare users, describe recent visit quality across provider types, and to assess whether perceiving the public healthcare sector as poor quality is associated with private health sector use. Conclusion Users rated public care visits poorly relative to private care; at the population level, perceptions of poor quality care may drive private care use and hence out-of-pocket costs. Improving public healthcare quality is necessary to ensure universal health coverage.