Medical costs in relation to the organization of ambulatory care.

Abstract

RISING costs of medical care are a worldwide phenomenon, and everywhere they have induced a search for methods of improved economy and efficiency. The rise in costs is real, even after correction for general price inflations. Partly, of course, the rise is due to an increase in the volume of medical services provided or, as it is usually put, the medical-care utilization rate of the population. Since expanding social expectations regard this as desirable (that is, to apply science to human need), the search for economies is seldom expressed in an effort to reduce the rate of ambulatory services provided, . . .