Physician COVID-19 Experiences from National Ambulatory Care Survey

United States data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) captures physician experiences related to COVID-19 in office-based settings. The dataset provides nationally representative estimates on topics like PPE shortages, testing availability, and telemedicine use. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) collected this preliminary data via physician interviews conducted between December 15, 2020 and May 6, 2022.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in telemedicine adoption by comparing 'Measure' values for 'Telemedicine or telehealth technology use before March 2020' and 'after March 2020'.
• Assess regional disparities in PPE shortages by filtering the 'Subgroup' column for different geographic categories.
• Model the reliability of estimates for physician testing positive using the 'Estimate Reliable?' and 'Estimate's Complement Reliable?' columns.
• Track changes in the ability to test for COVID-19 over time by grouping data by the 'Interview Period' column.

Strengths

• Nationally representative estimates for the United States.
• Data covers multiple interview periods from 2020 and 2021 NAMCS cycles.
• Includes confidence intervals ('Lower 95% CI', 'Upper 95% CI') for statistical assessment.

Limitations

• Data is labeled as preliminary, and final results may differ.
• Sample size (row count) is not provided.
• Temporal coverage is limited to interviews from late 2020 to mid-2022.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) via data.cdc.gov.

Collection Method

Physician Induction Interviews conducted as part of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS).

Time Range

Interviews conducted between December 15, 2020 and May 6, 2022.

Freshness

Data was last updated on the platform in April 2025, but the underlying survey collection ended in May 2022.

Geography

United States (nationally representative).