CDC: number of doctors visits jump

The CDC reported this past week that the number of patient visits to primary care medicine and surgical doctors' offices jumped by 20% between 1995 and 2005.

From the Reuters' article 'Survey finds U.S. hospital, doctor visits balloon':

"It was only a few years ago that we released that the total number of visits had reached 1 billion. And now we are up to 1.2 billion," Catharine Burt of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics said in a telephone interview.

"That's a 20 percent increase in the just the last five years -- a huge number," said Burt. "I can tell you that the number of hospitals and physicians has not increased 20 percent."

The reason is clear -- Americans are getting older. "When you reach 50 things start going wrong, just little by little, and you keep going back to the doctors," Burt said.