With the US health care system rapidly undergoing organizational changes that will have an impact on the delivery of primary care, a better understanding is needed of primary care services provided by generalist and specialist physicians. For this reason, we used the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) to examine changes in the frequency with which patients visited generalists and specialists for primary care services between 1997 and 2007.
Correspondence: Dr Kale, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1087, New York, NY 10029 (minal.kale@gmail.com).
Published Online: August 20, 2012. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3207
Author Contributions: Study concept and design: Kale, Federman, and Ross. Acquisition of data: Kale. Analysis and interpretation of data: Kale, Federman, and Ross. Drafting of the manuscript: Kale. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Federman and Ross. Statistical analysis: Kale and Federman. Study supervision: Federman and Ross.
Financial Disclosure: Dr Ross has received compensation as a board member for FAIR Health Inc Scientific and has received grants from Medtronic Inc and Pew Charitable Trusts.
Funding/Support: This project was not supported by external funds. Dr Kale is supported by the Mount Sinai Primary Care Research Fellowship, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration through the Ruth K. Kirchstein National Research Service Award. Dr Ross is currently supported by the National Institute on Aging (grant No. K08 AG032886) and by the American Federation of Aging Research through the Paul B. Beeson Career Development Award Program and has received grants from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.