DOI: 10.3886/icpsr29921.v1
title: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 2008
title: Version 1

description: The National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys (NAMCS) supply data on ambulatory medical care provided in physicians' offices. The 2008 survey contains information from 28,741 patient visits to 1,187 physicians' offices. Data are available on the patient's smoking habits, reason for the visit, expected source of payment, the physician's diagnosis, and the kinds of diagnostic and therapeutic services rendered. Other variables include information on the following: drugs/medications ordered, administered, or provided during office visits; information on medication code, generic name and code, brand name, entry status, prescription status, federal controlled substance status, composition status, and related ingredient codes. Information is also included on the physician's specialization and geographic location. Demographic information on patients, such as age, sex, race, and ethnicity, was also collected.
description: Microdata file users should be fully aware of the importance of the "patient visit weight" (PATWT) and how it must be used. Information about the patient visit weight, along with a "physician-level weight" (PHYSWT), is presented in the codebook. If more information is needed, the staff of the Ambulatory Care Statistics Branch can be consulted by calling (301) 458-4600.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: 59.1 percent unweighted response rate, 59.6 percent weighted response rate
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 2008
description: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Series
description: record abstracts 
Per agreement with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), ICPSR distributes the data file and text of the technical documentation for this collection as prepared by NCHS.
The Stata dataset (.dta file) made available by ICPSR does not contain all of the value labels found within the .do file supplied by ICPSR. Specifically, the value labels that are composed primarily of ICD-9 codes have been omitted from the .dta file. Those data users interested in applying the value labels to the dataset will be able to edit the Stata setup files, which include the aforementioned labels, provided by ICPSR.
description: Office visits made within the United States by patients of nonfederally-employed physicians who were primarily involved in office-based patient care activities, but not engaged in the specialties of radiology, pathology, or anesthesiology.
description: The 2008 NAMCS utilized a multistage probability sample design. Primary sampling units (PSU's) were selected in the first stage; physician practices within PSU's in the second stage; and patient visits to selected physicians in the third stage.