New NCHS Publications
Address Critical Issues in Health Care
Contact: NCHS/CDC
Public Affairs
(301) 458-4800
E-mail: nchsquery@cdc.gov
Americans made almost 1 billion visits
to the doctor in 1997, heart disease and childbirth were the leading causes of
hospitalization in that year, and the number of patients receiving home health care has
doubled during the 1990's, according to a series of new reports on health care patterns in
the United States published by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
The NCHS National Health Care Survey
covers inpatient hospitalizations, outpatient surgery, ambulatory care in doctors' offices
and emergency and outpatient departments, and long-term care in nursing homes and through
hospices and home health care agencies. Together these surveys provide a comprehensive
profile of health care in America.
Recent reports show that:
In 1997, there were an estimated 959
million ambulatory care visits made to physician offices, hospital outpatient departments,
and hospital emergency departments. Visits to office-based physicians were predominant,
accounting for slightly over 80 percent of all visits, with the rest divided about equally
between emergency and outpatient departments.
For just over 50 percent of all
ambulatory care visits, private insurance was the expected source of payment. Medicare
accounted for about 20 percent and Medicaid another 10 percent of visits.
More than one-half of all visits to
the doctor were made for reasons classified as symptoms, with respiratory symptoms
accounting for 1 in 10 visits. Other reasons for visiting the doctor included continuing
treatment of an existing problem; diagnostic, screening, and preventive care; injuries and
adverse effects; tests results; and administrative reasons.
Heart disease (4.1 million) and
childbirth (3.8 million) were the leading causes of hospitalization in 1997. Malignant
neoplasms, pneumonia, psychoses, stroke, and fractures each totaled more than a million
hospitalizations.
Overall, there were an estimated 31
million hospitalizations in 1997. Patients 65 years of age and over accounted for almost
40 percent of these hospital episodes.
The average elderly home health care
patient is a woman between the ages of 75 and 84 years, white, non-Hispanic, widowed, and
living with members of her family in a private home. Diseases of the circulatory system,
including heart disease, was the most frequent diagnosis for a home health care patient.
These and other findings appear in the
following reports, which can be viewed or downloaded without charge.
Series 13, No. 143.Ambulatory Care
Visits to Physician Offices, Hospital Outpatient Departments, and Emergency Departments:
United States, 1997. 47 pp. (PHS) 2000-1714. View/download PDF 778 KB
Series 13, No. 144. National Hospital
Discharge Survey: Annual Summary, 1997. 52 pp. (PHS) 2000-1715. View/download PDF 371 KB
Advance Data No. 309.
Characteristics of Elderly Home Health Care Users: Data From the 1996 National Home and
Hospice Care Survey. 12 pp. (PHS) 2000-1250 View/download PDF 93 KB