Disease relevance of Office Visits

• CONCLUSION: Although these data should be interpreted with caution because of missing information on factors such as quality of care, they suggest that follow-up office visits are effective in reducing early relapses in patients who have been recently treated in emergency departments for asthma or COPD [1].
• PURPOSE: To examine the relation between follow-up office visits after emergency discharge and the risk of emergency readmissions in patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) [1].
• If the initial use of amoxicillin fails to cure otitis media, a family will be burdened with medical costs for a second medication, additional office visit fees and time lost from employment [2].
• METHODS: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey data for the years 1990 to 1994 were analyzed to ascertain the age distribution of acne vulgaris office visits and treatment with topical acne agents including tretinoin [3].
• Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a progressive polyarthritis that is responsible for over nine million office visits annually [4].

Psychiatry related information on Office Visits

• The diagnosis of some sleep disorders (eg, OSAS, narcolepsy, PLMD) require PSG, whereas others can be diagnosed during an office visit with a thorough medical,psychiatric, and sleep history [5].

High impact information on Office Visits

• METHODS: We used nationally representative data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) of the National Center for Health Statistics and the American Medical Association's Socioeconomic Monitoring System (SMS) to examine the length of office visits with physicians from 1989 through 1998 [6].
• Stepwise discriminant function analysis showed that a significant rise in the serum creatinine concentration was most likely to occur in association with older age, black race, a higher number of missed office visits, and employment as a laborer [7].
• Twenty-four per cent of the practitioners' estimates, which were based on historical and laboratory data collected during a routine office visit, differed by more than +/- 75 mg per deciliter from the actual mean blood glucose levels calculated with the glycosylated hemoglobin assay [8].
• CONCLUSION--For reported efficacy rates and standard costs of a follow-up office visit, using miconazole first and then treating only those patients with unresponsive infections with a higher-priced prescription drug is less expensive than treating all patients with the higher-priced drug [9].
• In terms of monitoring costs, methotrexate had the highest costs associated with necessary laboratory tests and office visits [10].

Biological context of Office Visits

• RESULTS: A variety of cardiovascular disease prevention services were provided during an estimated 547 million adult office visits to US physicians in 1995, including blood pressure measurement (50% of visits), cholesterol testing (5%) and counseling for exercise (12%), weight (6%), cholesterol (4%) and smoking (3%) [11].
• They were assigned to receive 0.5 mg of PGE2, (Prepidil; Pharmacia-Upjohn, Kalamazoo, MI) intracervically at 39 weeks' gestation, repeated at weekly office visits for up to three doses, or expectant treatment [12].
• The majority of respondents (92%) were aware of the relationship between antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance, and respondents estimated that 5% of their patients had URI symptoms at their office visits [13].

Associations of Office Visits with chemical compounds

• Hydroxychloroquine had the lowest monitoring costs for office visits, and oral gold had the lowest for laboratory costs [10].
• We investigated physicians' reporting of cholesterol-related screening, counseling or medications during office visits and used multiple logistic regression to assess independent predictors [14].
• Patients treated with theophylline had more side effects and required more frequent office visits than those treated with cromolyn [15].
• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were the second most prescribed psychotropic agents, while anticonvulsant mood stabilizers (prescribed for a psychiatric reason), tricyclic antidepressants, central adrenergic agonists, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and lithium were also prescribed for a substantial number of office visits [16].
• These data were compared to office visits and tretinoin treatment of wrinkles, solar elastosis, and other conditions [3].

Gene context of Office Visits

• MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: National estimates of office visits for ADHD and psychotherapeutic drug visits for ADHD for each year and for a combined 8-year period [17].
• The average duration of office visits in 1989 was 16.3 minutes according to the NAMCS and 20.4 minutes according to the SMS survey [6].
• One hundred ninety-eight patients had been diagnosed as having CTS 420 times in more than 1000 office visits, but diagnostic laboratory studies were ordered only 25 times [18].
• Pulmonary function was evaluated on four 8-hour office visits at approximately 30-day intervals [19].
• Office visit and carcinoembryonic antigen analysis were performed most frequently [20].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Office Visits

• We found no significant main effects attributable to metropolitan statistical area, United States (US) census region, or health maintenance organization (HMO) penetration rate for commonly used surveillance modalities: serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA), office visit, and urinalysis [21].
• CONCLUSIONS: Two consecutive sets of transrectal ultrasound guided sextant biopsies of the prostate performed in a single office visit represent a cost-effective biopsy strategy for men presenting with an abnormal digital rectal examination and/or elevated serum PSA [22].

References