RT Book, Section A1 Burns, Lawton Robert SR Print(0) ID 1184093997 T1 Organized Ambulatory Care T2 The U.S. Healthcare Ecosystem: Payers, Providers, Producers YR 2021 FD 2021 PB McGraw-Hill PP New York, NY SN 9781264264476 LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1184093997 RD 2024/03/29 AB Ambulatory care accounts for approximately one-quarter to one-third of healthcare spending in the United States.1 Ambulatory care includes physician offices, hospital outpatient departments, hospital emergency departments (EDs), and other sites. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of ambulatory visits has been growing steadily in the new millennium, rising from 1 billion to 1.25 billion between 2000 and 2011. The volume of such visits going to physician offices may be declining, however. CDC data suggest that physician office visits declined from 1 billion (2009-2010) to 884 million (2016). During the same period, visits to hospital EDs remained relatively stable, rising slightly from 133 million (2009-2010) to 145 million (2016). The remainder of the increase occurred in hospital outpatient departments (see Chapter 11) and a wide array of newer, “organized ambulatory care” settings.2 These settings are profiled in the following sections.