Treffer: Access to Eye Care

Access to health care has been traditionally viewed as the ability to see a physician or to Α be hospitalized if necessary in the presence of a health state that may benefit from care in prevention, treatment, amelioration, or palliation. Information from national databases such as the National Ambulatory Care Medical Survey reporting on samples of visits from physician offices around the United States 1,2 or from the Medicare claims data 3 provides valuable insight about the status of eye care use in the United States, particularly for adults. National Ambulatory Care Medical Survey data from 2004 (the most recent year available) show that there were 47.3 million visits (SE of estimate, ±7.0 million visits) across all age groups to ophthalmologists' nonhospital-based offices, constituting 5.2% of all such visits and a rate of 16.4 visits per 100 persons in 2004. 1 There were a total of 43.6 million visits for eye and ear symptoms, with 11.1 million (SE, ±2.2 million) referable to vision dysfunction symptoms. As might be expected, visit rates are traditionally higher for elderly persons, with nearly 50% of those aged 65 years and older having at least 1 eye visit in any given year in Medicare. 3 In comparison, annual rates of eye care use have been estimated from the National Health Interview Survey to be 7.3% (95% confidence interval, 6.0%-8.6%) of those aged 0 to 5 years and 24.8% (95% confidence interval, 23.5%-26.2%) among those aged 6 to 17 years. 4 Across all age groups, 1-4 female sex was associated with greater use or likelihood of use of eye care services.