Three constructs of patient non-attendance fees
| Non-attendance fees as patient incentive | Non-attendance fees as patient education | Non-attendance fees as provider compensation | |
| Purpose | To motivate patients to attend appointments by increasing the monetary costs of non-attendance | To educate patients to attend appointments by transmitting social responsibility norms | To compensate (parts of) the providers’ costs incurred from patient non-attendance |
| Public concern | The aggregate utility of individual choices | The cultivation of civic virtues, fostering a sense of social responsibility | Financial predictability or reciprocal fairness |
| Assumptions of human behaviour | Patients seen as utility maximisers, driven by extrinsic and self-interested motivation | Patients seen as guided by conceptions of right and wrong, capable of being driven by moral motivation | Undetermined regarding assumptions of human behaviour |