medical providers report that over ___ of all patient visits

by Jeremy White 7 min read

FastStats - Physician office visits

26 hours ago Physician office visits. Number of visits: 860.4 million. Number of visits per 100 persons: 267.1. Percent of visits made to primary care physicians: 51.2%. Source: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2018 National Summary Tables, tables 1. pdf icon. [PDF – 793 KB] >> Go To The Portal


What information is included in a patient report?

It details everything that happened during an appointment or other encounter. The report optionally includes an overview of other patient medical information. You can also customize what appears on the report and configure special components which will include patient instructions and other information.

How do I display hidden diagnoses in the patient visit summary?

Hidden Diagnoses in the Patient Chart: Any diagnoses that are hidden or “locked” will not display in the Patient Visit Summary. To get a report that contains these diagnoses, use the Summary of Care Record. Display ICD-10 for Referral or Lab Requisitions: Some practices use the Patient Visit Summary to help communicate about an order.

What is the patient visit summary?

The Patient Visit Summary is an “end-of-visit” clinical summary report. It details everything that happened during an appointment or other encounter. The report optionally includes an overview of other patient medical information.

What is the goal of the physician–patient encounter?

Our main goal is to characterize physician–patient encounters in a new way, in order to study how physicians and patients allocate the scarce resource of physician time to deal with the complex set of problems arising in an office visit. DATA AND METHODS

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What is a patient visit summary?

The Patient Visit Summary is an “end-of-visit” clinical summary report. It details everything that happened during an appointment or other encounter. The report optionally includes an overview of other patient medical information. You can also customize what appears on the report and configure special components which will include patient instructions and other information.

How to record a patient who declined to receive a visit summary?

You can record when a patient or guardian declined to receive a Patient Visit Summary report for the day’s appointment. Click on the Decline button to indicate the patient or guardian did not want the Patient Visit Summary. Alternatively, you can click Decline inside the Patient Visit Summary window.

Key findings

Among adults aged 18 and over, the rate of mental health-related physician office visits to psychiatrists (693 per 10,000 adults) was higher compared with the rate to primary care physicians overall (397 per 10,000 adults), and for all age groups except 65 and over.

Did mental health-related physician office visit rates vary by physician specialty and patient age?

Mental health-related visit rates by physician specialty were 693 per 10,000 adults for psychiatrists, 397 per 10,000 adults for primary care physicians, and 162 per 10,000 adults for other specialties ( Figure 1 ).

Did mental health-related physician office visit rates vary by physician specialty and patient sex?

Mental health-related office visit rates to psychiatrists were higher compared with primary care physicians for both men (596 compared with 337 per 10,000 men) and women (782 compared with 452 per 10,000 women) ( Figure 2 ).

Did the percentage of mental health-related physician office visits vary by physician specialty and urban–rural status?

In large metropolitan areas, the percentage of mental health-related office visits to psychiatrists (63%) was higher compared with such visits to primary care physicians (26%) ( Figure 3 ).

Did the percentage of mental health-related physician office visits vary by physician specialty and primary expected source of payment?

A higher percentage of mental health-related office visits were made to psychiatrists compared with primary care physicians when the primary expected source of payment was private insurance (54% compared with 34%); Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) (56% compared with 34%); or no insurance (78% compared with 14%), but no significant difference was seen for Medicare ( Figure 4 )..

Summary

Research indicates that during 2012–2014, an estimated annual average of 30 million mental health-related physician office visits were made by adults aged 18 and over ( 5 ). Psychiatrists provided care at 55% of these office visits, primary care physicians at 32%, and other specialists at 13% ( 5 ).

Definitions

Mental health-related visits: Includes all visits with a primary reason for visit code of 1100–1199 or 2300–2349 based on “A Reason for Visit Classification for Ambulatory Care,” National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) ( 6 ).

What is the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice's Open Recordings Project?

In an article recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), investigators on The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice's Open Recordings Project explain the often-confusing laws around recordings clinical visits.

Is it illegal to record a patient without consent?

In ' all-party' jurisdictions, covert recordings, on the part of doctors or patients, are illegal as everyone being recorded must consent. In 'one-party' jurisdictions, the consent of any one party in the conversation is sufficient, so a patient can record a clinical encounter without the doctor or health care provider's consent.

Is recording a doctor's visit illegal?

Patients also worry that recording a doctor's visit might be illegal, especially if done covertly. advertisement.

Do medical practices charge for non-medical services?

Medical practices bill patients for non-medical services all the time. For example, offices routinely charge for filling out forms for schools, sports, life insurance, medical leave, etc. that are not linked to a patient visit or for copying medical records. Similarly, you could charge patients directly for meet-and-greet sessions.

Can you report E/M service codes?

You cannot report E/M service codes for a meet and greet because E/M services require a chief complaint, defined by CPT® as “a concise statement describing the symptom, problem, condition, diagnosis, or other factor that is the reason for the encounter, usually stated in the patient’s words.”.

Do you have to report a preventive visit?

And if there’s no medical reason for the visit, there’s no medical care to report. Preventive services codes do not require a chief complaint, and insurers often reimburse for them. But a meet-and-greet visit won’t include the age and gender appropriate history, examination, counseling, anticipatory guidance, and other required components ...

Why do patients avoid visiting?

For their part, many patients are also avoiding visits because they do not want to leave their homes and risk exposure. Also influencing both provider and patient behavior are the evolving local and state recommendations restricting travel and nonessential services.

Why do providers defer elective and preventive visits?

To decrease the risk of transmitting the virus to either patients or health care workers within their practice, providers are deferring elective and preventive visits, such as annual physicals. When possible, they are also converting in-person visits to telemedicine visits. For their part, many patients are also avoiding visits because they do not ...

How long does a doctor spend on EHR?

For each patient encounter, doctors average a little more than 16 minutes on the EHR. (Getty/BrianAJackson) Physicians spend on average just over 16 minutes on electronic health records (EHRs) for each patient visit, according to a new study.

How much time do first year doctors spend on EHR?

RELATED: First-year doctors spend 3 times more hours on EHRs than patient care. The study looked at about 100 million patient visits to 155,000 U.S. physicians and found they spend an average of 16 minutes and 14 seconds per patient encounter using EHRs, with chart review (33%), documentation (24%) and ordering (17%) accounting for most of the time.

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Key Findings

Summary

  • Research indicates that during 2012–2014, an estimated annual average of 30 million mental health-related physician office visits were made by adults aged 18 and over (5). Psychiatrists provided care at 55% of these office visits, primary care physicians at 32%, and other specialists at 13% (5). Differences in mental health-related visits by physic...
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Definitions

  • Mental health-related visits: Includes all visits with a primary reason for visit code of 1100–1199 or 2300–2349 based on “A Reason for Visit Classification for Ambulatory Care,” National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) (6). Note that reason for visit classification was defined as the patient’s complaint(s), symptoms(s), or other reason(s) for the visit in the patient’s own words. U…
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Data Source and Methods

  • Data for this analysis are from the 2012–2014 NAMCS, which is a nationally representative survey of visits made to nonfederal office-based physicians that is conducted annually by NCHS. NAMCS uses a stratified two-stage probability sampling design, with physicians selected at the first stage and visits selected at the second stage. The survey data are weighted to produce national estim…
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About The Authors

  • Donald Cherry, Michael Albert, and Linda F. McCaig are with the National Center for Health Statistics, Division of Health Care Statistics, Ambulatory and Hospital Care Statistics Branch.
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References

  1. National Institute of Mental Health. Health information: Statistics: Mental illnessexternal icon.
  2. Cherry D, McCaig L, Albert M. QuickStats: Percentage of mental illness-related physician office visits by persons aged ≥ 18 years, by physician specialty and region—United States, 2012. MMWR 64(38)...
  3. Olfson M. The rise of primary care physicians in the provision of US mental health care. J He…
  1. National Institute of Mental Health. Health information: Statistics: Mental illnessexternal icon.
  2. Cherry D, McCaig L, Albert M. QuickStats: Percentage of mental illness-related physician office visits by persons aged ≥ 18 years, by physician specialty and region—United States, 2012. MMWR 64(38)...
  3. Olfson M. The rise of primary care physicians in the provision of US mental health care. J Health Polit Policy Law 41(4):559–83. 2016.
  4. Xierali IM, Tong ST, Petterson SM, Puffer JC, Phillips RL Jr, Bazemore AW. Family physicians are essential for mental health care delivery. J Am Board Fam Med 26(2):114–5. 2013.

Suggested Citation

  • Cherry D, Albert M, McCaig LF. Mental health-related physician office visits by adults aged 18 and over: United States, 2012–2014. NCHS Data Brief, no 311. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018.
See more on cdc.gov