Freestanding emergency centers and the patient population of internists.

To compare the characteristics of patients seeking care in freestanding emergency centers with the patients seen by internists, we studied the adult populations of two freestanding emergency centers (FECs) through an audit of medical records for 20 days randomly selected throughout 1983. We recorded the age, sex, time of visit, whether the patient claimed a family physician, diagnosis, laboratory tests, and charges, and compared the data with those from earlier national studies of internists' practices. Of the 1,061 FEC visits audited, 78% were by patients 20 to 44 years of age. Only 3.2% of FEC patients were 65 or older, an age group that accounted for more than a third (35.2%) of the patients seen by a national sample of internists. More than half (55.3%) of the FEC patients claimed family physicians. Visits to FECs were most frequently trauma-related (34.1%) or for medical or special examinations (17.1%). Laboratory tests were ordered in 35.5% of FEC encounters. Fees for 62.1% of FEC visits were less than $41.