The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), collects data on visits to physician offices to describe patterns of ambulatory care delivery in the United States. As part of NAMCS, the Physician Induction Interview collects information about practice characteristics at physician offices. Partway through the 2020 NAMCS, NCHS added questions to the Physician Induction Interview to assess physician experiences related to COVID-19 in office-based settings.

The data include nationally representative estimates of experiences related to COVID-19 among office-based physicians in the United States, including: shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the past 3 months; the ability to test for COVID-19 in the past 3 months; providers testing positive for COVID-19 in the past 3 months; turning away COVID-19 patients in the past 3 months; and telemedicine or telehealth technology use before and after March 2020. Estimates were derived from interviews with physicians in periods 3 and 4 of 2020 NAMCS and periods 1 through 4 of 2021 NAMCS, which occurred between December 15, 2020 and May 6, 2022. The data are considered preliminary, and the results may change with the final data release.