Payee relationships: institutional payees versus personal acquaintances.

Most patients' payees are friends or family members, but quantitative evaluations of patients' experience of payeeship published thus far have involved patients whose payees were mental health staff. We compared ratings of different aspects of payeeship among veterans whose payees were family or friends (n = 27) and among those with institutional payees (lawyers, accountants, or clinic-affiliates, n = 22). After adjusting for differences in sociodemographic characteristics, the two groups had small and statistically non-significant differences on measures of their interaction with their payees. Overall satisfaction with payees and trust in them was high.