National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1993 summary

Abstract

Objective: This report describes ambulatory care visits made to private office-based settings in the United States during 1993. Ambulatory medical care services are described in terms of physician, patient, and visit characteristics.

Methods: The data presented in this report are from the 1993 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS). This survey is part of the ambulatory care component of the National Health Care Survey (NHCS), which measures health care utilization across a variety of providers. The NAMCS is a national probability sample survey of visits to office-based physicians in the United States. Sample data were weighted to produce annual estimates.

Results: During 1993, an estimated 717.2 million visits were made to physician offices in the United States, resulting in an average of 2.8 visits per person per year. This rate did not differ significantly from the overall visit rate of 3.0 in 1992. Females made 60 percent of the visits. White persons had a significantly higher rate of visits to physicians than black persons (3.0 visits per person per year and 1.8 visits per person per year, respectively). Over one-quarter (27.6 percent) of the visits were to general and family physicians. About 84 million, or 12 percent, of the visits were injury related. The annual rate of injury-related office visits was 33.0 visits per 100 persons. Essential hypertension was the most common diagnosis made by physicians in 1993 as it has been since the survey began in 1973. Two-thirds of the visits resulted in another scheduled appointment and the mean duration was 18 minutes.