| I'll chime in with my experience in Austria: * If I have a cold, I go to a doctor without appointment and if I'm unlucky, I have to wait for 2 hours. Usually it's 30-60 minutes. * If I have a specific thing that requires a specialist, I may or may not have to get a referral from a general practitioner first. Most specialist don't really need it, but for an allergy test I needed to get one. This puts me at 2 x 60 minutes wait time. * Costs are close to nothing. Drugs will cost a little, up to around 6€ for a pack of meds. I have to pay 2€ for a doctors visit due to the specific insurance provider I have, which is okay. I needed to pay 12€ for an x-ray because it wasn't an emergency. * My austrian insurance provider payed more than half of a hospital trip I had to take during vacation in Taiwan. Total cost of the trip to the hospital without insurance was 130€, which included check by the doctor, pain medications and some medical equipment. I had travel insurance, but I didn't use it because I was left with a bill of just 60€. * A few times I was angry because a doctor only took 5 minutes time, prescribed some pain meds and sent me on my way. Told me all I can do right now is wait until it gets better. Turns out, that was the case. * If it's an emergency, you get treated immediately. I wouldn't trade our system for anything. It's not perfect, but it's perfectly fine. |
we are not as ritch as Austria and that shows, so if you don't have emergency wait lists for certain things are longer.