Advance data
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This report describes ambulatory care visits made to physician offices within the United States. Statistics are presented on selected characteristics of the physician's practice, the patient, and the visit. ⋯ During 1997 an estimated 787.4 million visits were made to physician offices in the United States, an overall rate of 3.0 visits per person. One quarter of these visits were made to general and family physicians, which was a significantly higher proportion compared to the other 13 specialties. Persons aged 75 years and over had the highest rate of physician office visits, 6.5 visits per person. Females had a significantly higher rate of visits to physician offices than males overall, as did white persons compared with black persons. Of all visits made to these offices in 1997, approximately 50 percent listed private insurance as the primary expected source of payment, and almost 30 percent were made by patients belonging to a health maintenance organization (HMO). There were an estimated 81.6 million injury-related visits during 1997, or 30.6 visits per 100 persons. Two-thirds of these visits were for unintentional injuries.
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This report describes ambulatory care visits to hospital emergency departments in the United States. Statistics are presented on selected patient and visit characteristics. ⋯ During 1997, an estimated 94.9 million visits were made to hospital emergency departments (ED's) in the United States, about 35.6 visits per 100 persons. Persons 75 years and over had the highest rate of ED visits. There were an estimated 35.1 million injury-related ED visits during 1997, or 13.2 visits per 100 persons. Seventy percent of injury-related ED visits were made by persons under 45 years of age. Injury visit rates were higher for males than females in each age group under 45 years. According to ICD-9-CM classification, about four-fifths of injury visits were unintentional. Almost 72 percent of the ED visits involved medication therapy, with pain relief drugs accounting for almost 30 percent of the medications mentioned. Acute upper respiratory infection was the leading illness-related diagnosis at ED visits.