Utilización de servicios médicos de Arizona por residentes de México

Arizona physicians practicing in the four counties bordering Mexico were surveyed regarding the use of their services by residents of Mexico. One hundred eight-eight (79%) of the 239 respondents to the mail survey reported seeing at least one Mexican resident per week during 1988. Ninety-nine of these physicians (53%) practiced in Tucson; 89 (47%) practiced elsewhere in the four border counties. The mean number of Mexican resident patients seen per week was nine (9% of total) for border physicians and 5 (6% of total) for Tucson physicians. The most frequent responses from border physicians asked to list the most common health conditions of their Mexican resident patients were injury and poisoning (21%) and circulatory diseases (11%), while the most frequent responses of Tucson physicians were circulator diseases (10%) and digestive diseases (9%). Problems and solutions in the border care health system are mainly related to quality of care and health care financing.