Table 3.
Reason for Visits at Retail Clinics and Primary Care Physician Offices
| Retail Clinic Visits | Primary Care Physician Visits | Emergency Department Visits | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Patients | Children | Adults | All Patients | Children | Adults | All Patients | Children | Adults | |
| Total visits (millions)* | 1.25 | 0.34 | 0.89 | 483.47 | 144.37 | 339.10 | 112.40 | 28.23 | 84.17 |
| Reason for visit # | % (SE) | % (SE) | % (SE) | ||||||
| Upper respiratory infection, sinusitis or bronchitis | 27.4 (0.04) | 16.3 (0.07) | 31.6 (0.1) | 9.7 (0.3) | 14.2 (0.5) | 7.8 (0.4) | 5.0 (0.1) | 9.6 (0.3) | 3.4 (0.1) |
| Pharyngitis | 21.2 (0.04) | 35.1 (0.08) | 16.3 (0.04) | 1.9 (0.1) | 3.9 (0.3) | 1.1 (0.1) | 1.6 (0.1) | 2.9 (0.2) | 1.1 (0.1) |
| Immunizations | 19.7 (0.04) | 9.4 (0.05) | 24.0 (0.05) | 0.6 (0.1) | 0.8 (0.2) | 0.6 (0.1) | 0.04 (0.007) | N.A.** | 0.04 (0.008) |
| Otitis media or otitis externa | 12.7 (0.03) | 26.1 (0.08) | 7.7 (0.03) | 3.1 (0.1) | 7.5 (0.3) | 1.2 (0.1) | 2.5 (0.1) | 7.4 (0.2) | 0.8 (0.04) |
| Conjunctivitis | 4.6 (0.02) | 6.0 (0.04) | 4.1 (0.02) | 0.6 (0.1) | 1.2 (0.1) | 0.3 (0.03) | 0.6 (0.03) | 1.1 (0.07) | 0.5 (0.03) |
| Urinary tract infection | 3.5 (0.02) | 0.4 (0.01) | 4.7 (0.02) | 1.2 (0.1) | 0.6 (0.08) | 1.5 (0.1) | 1.9 (0.1) | 1.1 (0.1) | 2.1 (0.1) |
| Screening lab test or blood pressure check | 1.3 (0.01) | 0.1 (0.005) | 1.5 (0.01) | 0.3 (0.04) | N.A.** | 0.4 (0.1) | 0.1 (0.01) | N.A.** | 0.07 (0.01) |
| Other preventive care ~ | 0.8 (0.008) | 0.8 (0.02) | 0.3 (0.006) | 11.4 (0.4) | 25.2 (0.8) | 5.5 (0.3) | 0.4 (0.04) | 0.5 (0.05) | 0.4 (0.05) |
| Other care not included in above categories | 8.9 (0.03) | 5.8 (0.04) | 9.7 (0.03) | 70.5 (0.6) | 44.7 (0.8) | 81.5 (0.6) | 87.5 (0.3) | 76.2 (0.6) | 91.3 (0.2) |
| Total, ten most common reasons for visits to retail clinics ^ | 90.3 (0.03) | 93.4 (0.04) | 90.0 (0.03) | 18.1 (0.5) | 30.1 (0.8) | 13.0 (0.5) | 12.0 (0.3) | 23.2 (0.6) | 8.3 (0.2) |
Number of visits to retail clinics since they opened. Number of estimated annual visits to primary care physicians and emergency departments from 2002–2005 based on sampling weights. Numbers for retail clinics different from what is presented in Table 2 due to missing data on reason for visit.
National Center for Health Statistics recommends against reporting individual estimates based on <30 records or with a SE >30% due to low reliability
Column percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding.
Preventive care visits not for immunizations or screening. Defined by primary visit ICD-9 diagnosis codes V01, V70, V72, V29–39
The ten most common reasons are the following: upper respiratory infection, sinusitis, bronchitis, pharyngitis, immunizations, otitis media, otitis externa, conjunctivitis, urinary tract infection, and screening lab/blood pressure test
Analyses of claims data obtained from retail clinic companies and survey data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Care Survey