CDC: Aging Population Causes Spike in ER visits

Americans made an estimated 1.1 billion visits to physician offices and hospital outpatient and emergency departments in 2006, according to information released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That’s an average of four visits per person.

The number of visits to physician offices and hospital outpatient and emergency departments increased by 26 percent from 1996 to 2006, which is far quicker than U.S. population growth of 11 percent. CDC researchers concluded that the increased visits can be attributed to an aging U.S. population. In short, older people seek more medical care than younger people seek.

The statistics were collected from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics National Health Care Survey.

According to the survey, in 2006:

-On seven out of 10 visits at least one medication was provided, prescribed, or continued. About 2.6 billion medications were prescribed. Pain relievers were the most common (13.6 percent) and were most often prescribed during primary care and emergency department visits.

-Patients with Medicaid use the emergency department more frequently than patients with private insurance (82 of 100 patients for Medicaid as opposed to 21 of 100 patients for private insurance).

-On week days, most emergency department visits happened outside of the standard business-hour range of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

-The overall average wait time to see an emergency department physician was 56 minutes.

The new series of health care reports can be accessed here.