Health care visits with nurses by place of visit: United States, 1980

In this report, based on the National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey of 1980, the National Center for Health Statistics presents statistical estimates on health care visits--and on the people who had such visits--with nurses and on places visited by the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States. The report does not include telephone visits, emergency room visits, visits in which a physician was also seen, or visits in dental offices and clinics. The report also excludes all services provided to patients in hospitals or nursing homes. In general, the subject of this report may be described as ambulatory services provided independently by nurses in the course of patient visits. The nurse visits and the visiting patients are reported here according to where the visits took place--in doctors' offices or group practices, doctors' clinics, neighborhood or family health centers, company clinics, school clinics, other clinics, patients' homes, laboratories, hospital outpatient departments, other places, and unknown places. Indications are that nurse visits in these places are greatly outnumbered by nurse visits in institutions and in situations where the doctor is included in the visit; nevertheless, a very extensive set of nurses' services are accounted for in this report, and the data on circumstances of visits and characteristics of clients by place of visit are both meaningful and useful. Data on nurse visits in each type of place are compared with the total nurse visits in all types of places. Highlights of these findings are as follows: Persons having nurse visits in doctors' offices or group practices tended to be older than the average nurse patients. Most were white persons; relatively few were black. A large proportion of those 17 years of age and over were married. Family incomes tended to be above average. Charges for the visits were lower than average for nurse visits. The patient or the patient's family paid for about one-half of the charges. Persons having nurse visits in doctors' clinics shared similar characteristics with persons having nurse visits in doctors' offices. One difference is that payment for services in doctors' clinics is less likely to come from the patient or the patient's family. Nearly 44 percent of the clinic visits were in the North Central Region. Persons having nurse visits in neighborhood and family health centers tended to be quite young. They had relatively low educational and family income levels. They tended to live in the South and in rural, nonmetropolitan areas. Persons with visits in these centers averaged only 2.7 such visits during the year.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)