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.
posted by Niraj "Raj" Patel @ 7/03/2007
1 comments
1 Comments:
I'm not sure the reason is solely demographic. First off, there are competing statistics saying a 20% rise over 5 vs. 10 years. But either way, this is the period where managed care rose significantly, which started to cut per-visit physician reimbursements.
As you might expect, physicians decreased the amount of time spent with each patient per visit and have asked them to come in more often as well.
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