单选题 A sick or injured person can obtain medical care in several different places. These include provider practices such as medical offices and clinics, hospitals and nursing homes.
There are about 200,000 medical offices, clinics, and other provider practices in the United States. Earlier in the 20th century most physicians were single people working in their own offices or in partnership with another doctor. Patients visited the office, received an examination or other service, and paid a fee. This traditional fee-for-service medicine has been declining. Many physicians now practice in groups where they share the same offices and equipment with other doctors. Group practices may combine primary care physicians, several kinds of specialists, laboratories, and equipment for diagnosing disease. Physicians who practice in a group reduce their own expenses and provide patients with a wider range of services.
Many doctors are joining with hospitals, insurance companies, and industrial employers to provide managed care for groups of patients. These plans manage to avoid unnecessary services and reduce costs. Rather than taking a fee from each patient, managed care physicians may receive an annual salary from a fixed sum for each patient.
Patients who are too sick for care in a doctor's office go to a hospital. Hospitals offer Patients 24-hour care from a staff of health professionals. They provide services not available elsewhere, such as major surgery, child birth, and intensive care for the critically ill. Hospital care is the most expensive form of health care. Efforts to control health care costs have emphasized reducing the number of patients admitted to hospitals and their length of stay. During the 1980s and 1990s, these efforts led to the closing of more than 600 hospitals.
Patients who need long-term medical care because of advanced age or chronic illness may stay in a nursing home. The United States has about 23,000 nursing homes with about 1.3 million patients.

单选题 Earlier in the 20th century, people often went to the ______ to check the illness.

单选题 "Physicians who practice in a group reduce their own expenses and provide patients with a wider range of services." in this sentence "expenses" can be explained as ______.

单选题 According to the article, what is the shortcoming of the hospital?

单选题 According to the passage, the followings are the methods to reduce the costs EXCEPT ______.

单选题 In the sentence "Patients who need long, term medical care because of advanced age or chronic illness may stay in a nursing home. ", here "chronic" means ______.