Description: An important component of health care service use is the setting in which care is provided. Office-based visits/use/events can occur in a variety of places such as a doctor¿s or group practice office, medical clinic, managed care plan or hmo center, neighborhood/family/community health center, surgical center, rural health clinic, company clinic, school clinic, walk-in urgent centers, VA facility, or laboratory/x-ray facilities. Expenditures for office-based visits/use/events include all direct payments by individuals, private insurance (including TRICARE), Medicare, Medicaid, and other sources such as the Veterans Administration, Workers' Compensation, and miscellaneous public sources to providers of the services. In addition to the tables, query tool, and publications below, person-level and event-level data files with office-based visits/use/events and expenditure variables can be downloaded for analysis.

Data tables: For tables specifically on office-based visits and expenditures, go to the Table 8 series in the Expenditures by Health Care Service tables, and the Office-Based Provider Visits columns of the Expenditures by Medical Condition and State-Level Medical Expenditures tables of the HC Summary Data Tables. For tables on the quality of care received during office-based visits, go to the Quality of Care tables.

Analytic tools: You can use the MEPSNet/HC query tool to generate your own estimates for office-based visits/use/events and expenditures. Select the Medical Provider Visits and the Hospital Outpatient Visits variables within the Utilization, Expenditures, and SOP Variable Group of the Variable Selection Query Tab.