Have you been to the doctor’s office lately? Primary care and specialist offices appointment wait times are way out of control, even for established patients! If you’re a new patient…heck you could be waiting up to 6 months to see that new doctor in their office. What the heck is going on???
I saw these “longer” appointment waiting times starting a few years ago. I don’t mind waiting a day or two if I’m really sick or a month or two if I’m well and just going for a consultation with a new doctor. However, I think it’s totally ridiculous that when you’re really sick they tell you that there’s nothing open on the schedule for the next 4 weeks. Say what? What am I supposed to do? Die? Seriously! The majority of the time they respond to go to the ER or to Urgent Care to seek treatment.
Well, the ER costs thousands of dollars and you sit and wait for HOURS if not a full day to just be seen. Your not sick enough (life threatening) to even be there but your own doctor is too booked up to see you. I don’t want to be paying thousands of dollars for something my primary doctor could clearly handle in his office. Ridiculous!
Urgent Care has their place in our community and I do agree that if your doctor can’t see you…that’s the next best choice. But then again, you’re PAYING more to be see at Urgent Care than you would at your family doctor’s office. Plus, the majority of them accept walk-in appointments so you could be sitting for hours until you see a doctor who knows nothing about your past medical history.
There’s a lot of things wrong with our healthcare system right now and that’s one thing that needs to be addressed. Patients who are really sick shouldn’t be lying at home suffering and/or getting sicker because a family doctor can’t see them for 4 weeks. If doctors can’t see patients in a reasonable amount of time they need to HIRE more doctor’s, physician assistants, nurses, etc. so that patients are seen more quickly.
Something has go to be done because this is a nationwide problem and issue. It’s in almost every community. Something has go to change and change soon!
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