The waits are long and the gowns are skimpy. You get poked and probed, put on a scale and asked intrusive questions. But for something that usually isn’t much fun, Americans do it a lot. The average person visited a doctor’s office three times in 2000, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.  If that sounds high, consider a growing over-65 population, an increasingly health-conscious population and the usual battery of checkups and examinations, and it’s easier to understand how Americans racked up 823.5 million office visits in those 12 months. Bear in mind that this number does not include any kind of emergency or urgent care. The total number of visits has increased with the population, but the per-person visit rate is also up, from 2.7 in 1980. So why are we going to the doctor so much?  Often, we’re going because we want to, or at least we know we should. In 2000, 18% of doctor’s appointments were for diagnostic tests, health screenings and preventive services, up from about 16% in 1990. Physicians, however, say they’ve noted a greater increase in the interest and awareness patients have in these services than the numbers indicate.  “There’s more sophistication on the part of the public on preventive care and health screening,” says Dr. John Saultz, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine and associate dean for primary care at Oregon Health and Science University. People better understand now the benefits of knowing their cholesterol level, taking a PSA test to detect prostate disease or having regular mammograms to screen for breast cancer, among other health matters.  Dr. Nicole Nisly, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa, says she has seen the health awareness and knowledge of her patients grow tremendously in her 20 years in medicine. “I see the baby boomer population becoming more aware of their own morbidity,” Nisly says. As a result, this well-read, well-educated population is getting proactive about health. She says she sometimes has patients come in requesting a new test or a new drug before she’s even heard of them.  This population is also seeking out more specialists and alternative health providers for their care. Primary care physicians took 66% of all office appointments in 1980, but now see only 59%.  On the opposite side of her hyper-informed, health-conscious patients are those who aren’t paying enough attention to their well-being, Nisly says. “There’s been just an incredible increase in diseases related to obesity,” she says. The nation’s skyrocketing rates of overweight and obese youth and adults have registered in doctors’ offices with increasing cases of high blood pressure, sleep apnea, joint pain and diabetes. In fact, the increase in Type II diabetes, which is often caused by lifestyle, has been dramatic enough to move the condition from the tenth most common diagnosis in the 1980 Center for Health Statistics data to the third most common in 2000. It beat out both ear infections and pregnancy.  Both populations are, in their own ways, driving up the cost of health care. For the health-conscious baby boomer and the growing aging population, more doctor visits, more sophisticated tests and more specialists add up to more money. Problems like obesity and people living longer with chronic diseases strain the system in other ways. The cost of drugs is also a huge factor in the increasing cost of care, according to a study done by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. The increased use and expense of prescription drugs have pushed drug costs up 11% between 2000 and 2001 alone.  The National Center for Health Statistics reports that at least one drug was prescribed at 66% of all office visits, and the list of the most prescribed drugs has shifted in just 10 years from mostly generic antibiotics and pain medications to brand-name medications like Pfizer ‘s Celebrex and Lipitor.  Higher health costs mean many employers are facing the fourth straight year of rising health insurance premiums. Hewitt Associates, a consulting firm, found employers may be facing double-digit increases next year, and they’re passing on some of those increases to their employees in the form of higher premiums and co-payments.  But what are the most common aches, pains, itches and illnesses that drive us to visit our doctor? The following was compiled based on the symptoms patients recorded as the primary reason for visiting their doctor’s office in 2000. It was compiled with data from the National Center on Health Statistics and excludes visits for postoperative and general medical examinations.  Click here for our slide show on the ten most common health complaints.  Comments are turned off for this post.
Americans are going to the doctor's more than ever. Are they all hypochondriacs, really sick or just more health conscious?