Table 10.

Number and percentage distribution of visits to Western Medicine by major disease category from 1996–2001 in Taiwan.

Major disease category	ICD-9-CM code range	Visits	%
Diseases of the respiratory system	460–519	1,347,671	45.9%
Diseases of the digestive system	520–579	324,820	11.1%
Diseases of the nervous system and sense organs	320–389	297,257	10.1%
Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue	710–739	251,625	8.6%
Diseases of the circulatory system	390–459	228,051	7.8%
Diseases of the genitourinary system	580–629	210,842	7.2%
Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue	680–709	198,619	6.8%
Symptoms, signs, and ill-defined conditions	780–799	148,989	5.1%
Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases and immunological disorders	240–279	138,771	4.7%
Injury and poisoning	800–999	97,843	3.3%
Total visits		2,935,480	100.0%

Data were obtained by 1:500 sampling from National Health Insurance files in Taiwan (see text for detail). All diagnoses at each claim were taken into consideration.