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Background. RGPs (regular general practitioners) are obliged to take on duties in the out-of-hours services in Norway, but they perform less than half of the work done by doctors in these services. We wished to compare compensation claims for out-of-hours work from rGPs with those from other doctors. Material and methods. NAV (the Norwegian Labour and Welfare administration) provided information about all doctors working in the out-of-hours services in Norway in 2006 (4 729, of whom 2 220 were rGPs) and coupled this with compensation claims from them in the same year. Results. RGPs had 46.6 % of all patient contacts in the out-of-hours services, but more telephone contacts (57.4 %) and simple/short contacts (50.7 %) than other doctors. Other doctors had most contacts in the largest (59.8 %) and most central (56.7 %) municipalities, and used general and unspecific diagnoses (12.6 % of consultations) more often than rGPs (11.0 %). Older doctors used fewer fees than younger doctors, but otherwise the total number of fees only differed slightly between groups of doctors. Newly qualified doctors serving their compulsory practice period, claimed extra compensation for long consultations in 41.2 % of cases, rGPs who were also general practice specialists claimed this particular fee in 20.2 % of cases, and other doctors claimed it in 35.7 % of consultations. RGPs wrote sick notes more often (7.1 % of consultations) than newly qualified doctors (5.7 %) and other doctors (6.6 %), but general practice specialists wrote sick notes most often (7.4 %). Interpretation. Experienced rGPs and general practice specialists spend less time per patient than other doctors in the out-of-hours services.

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