General psychiatrists in group practice had a median of 1,678 ambulatory encounters in 2010, down 11% from 2007, according to a survey by the Medical Group Management Association.
Psychiatrists in the Eastern United States had the highest number of ambulatory encounters, 2,110, while those in West, with 634 encounters, had the lowest, the MGMA reported. Female psychiatrists had a median of 1,935 ambulatory encounters, while the median for male psychiatrists was 1,868. (The numbers of psychiatrists used to calculate the male/female medians and the overall psychiatry median were not the same.)
The MGMA considered an ambulatory encounter to be "documented, face-to-face contact between a patient and a provider" that did not take place in an inpatient hospital and did not involve a surgical procedure.
The 2010 edition of the annual survey, conducted among MGMA members and nonmembers, includes data from 2,846 group practices representing 59,375 physician and nonphysician providers. The MGMA presents highlights of the survey in its "In Practice" blog.