Emergency doctors deliver more than a quarter of US acute care

A detailed study of where patients get treated for acute problems such as stomach or chest pain, fever, or cough has found that primary care doctors handle only 42% of 354 million such visits in the United States each year, while doctors working in accident and emergency departments handle 28%. The study, in this month’s issue of Health Affairs (doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2009.1026), found that 20% of acute care visits are to specialists and 7% are to...