OBJECTIVES A significant proportion of smoking adults who visit their health care providers do not receive any advice to quit smoking despite evidence that offering advice increases the likelihood of smoking cessation. We assess patient characteristics associated with receiving physician advice to quit smoking. METHODS The 2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a nationally representative survey of the U.S. population, was used to identify a weighted sample of 16.7 million “current” smokers age 18 and over, who had a routine check-up within past year, and answered the question: “In the past 12 months did a doctor advise you to stop smoking? “ Logistic regression, controlling for the potential confounders of age and gender, was used to estimate the odds of being advised to quit. Dendograms and mosaic plots are used to display the results graphically. RESULTS Seventy percent (11.7 million) of current smokers were advised to quit in the prior 12 months. As expected, smokers with the following medical conditions had higher odds of receiving advice compared to those who did not have these conditions: patients with cardiovascular diseases (OR=1.7, p<0.01), diabetes (OR=2.0, p<0.01), and respiratory diseases (OR=1.9, p<0.01). There was an increasing odds of being advised to quit as a smoker's general health, measured by the Short Form-12 instrument, deteriorated. Several demographic characteristics were also significantly associated with receiving advice: living in the Northeast had a 48% increased odds compared to living in the South. The odds for married smokers was 28% higher compared to non-married smokers. White smokers had a 20% increase compared to black smokers. CONCLUSIONS Missed opportunities for physicians to provide smoking cessation advice continue to persist. Although patients with several specific medical conditions often get advice to quit, additional efforts are needed among demographic subgroups of patients who continue to smoke.