Aging population means more visits to docs
The federal government released statistics about visits to docs and behind every stat lays a story. One recurring theme was the aging population of our country going to physicians more often.
In just 10 years, the number of medical visits increased 26 percent, more than twice the rate of population growth for the same period.
There were 1.1 billion visits to emergency rooms, doctors' offices and outpatient facilities in 2006 — that's four visits per person. The numbers say senior citizens make more visits than they did 10 years before, and there are a lot more seniors now. This stretches the capacity of doctors, nurses and health care professionals in many facilities. Scratch that. I'd say in most facilities.
There are other rich nuggets in the government study:
70 percent of the visits to doctors' offices, emergency rooms and hospital outpatient departments resulted in at least one medication being either provided, prescribed or renewed. That added up to 2.6 billion prescriptions — a whole lot of prescribing. Painkillers were the most commonly prescribed drug — and just as commonly abused.
From 2000 to 2006, the rate of knee replacement surgery doubled for the age range of 45 to 64. It gives me a little ache in my knees to think of the problems in getting the word out about knee replacement joints with high rates of failure, as I mentioned to you in House Calls not too long ago.
The most frequent reasons adults give for going to the emergency room are chest pain, abdominal pain and back pain. Just think of all the prescribing opportunities right there.
A lot of government programs (translation: taxpayer dollars) go into ways to make doctor visits more efficient. What that means is getting you out the door quickly. Wouldn't it be better if our tax dollars were subsidizing care that would get to the root causes of health problems and help prevent chronic problems in the first place?
Apparently, Uncle Sam isn't ready for that yet.
