[KyleJune]

Where is the wait only 30 minutes? Every time I've been to the emergency room the wait has been 6+ hours. I think the only way it would be that fast at the hospitals I've been to is if you'd die waiting longer, otherwise it's a long wait.

[Scoundreller]

Everywhere and nowhere it can be 30 minutes. Every competent ER on the planet triages patients. Come in with crushing chest pains and it should be 30 minutes everywhere 99% of the time. Broken arm? You might wait hours if people keep coming in with crushing chest pains.

"Wait" can be defined very differently. Wait time to get triaged by a nurse? An ECG for chest pains? Initial physician assessment? Entry-to-exit? Lab results? Time to X-Ray if needed?

Lots of directives may be in place too. In an efficient system, the nurse is empowered to "order" many procedures that screen out serious things that require immediate physician intervention. Or just to save time like ordering an X-Ray first instead of waiting to see a doctor to order it and then waiting again for it to come back to review.

[glenstein]

I am also fully insured and I have never once heard of emergency rooms with an average wait time of 30 minutes in the United States.

[cmiles74]

ProPublica has a tool that will provide the average wait time for hospitals in your area.

https://projects.propublica.org/emergency/

Where I live, all in driving distance have an average wait time more than 2.5 hours.

[oogali]

I've waited hours in NYC.

I've waited less than an hour in New Jersey and Connecticut.

When I still lived in NYC, I resolved that if I needed a hospital but I wasn't in extremely bad shape, I would drive an hour into an adjacent state's ER rather than wait in NYC.

[nobodyandproud]

Call 911 and get an ambulance.

[kevviiinn]

That's a good way to spend $6000

[oogali]

It's about $500-1,000.

Coming in via an ambulance doesn't trigger some sort of re-prioritzation, if you're not suffering from something that is immediately life threatening.

In most NYC hospitals, you will end up in a secondary waiting area that lies just beyond the regular ER doors.

Good luck if it's a Saturday night.

[xwdv]

Post COVID hospital in Ohio, limped in with severe ankle sprain, got doctor in less than 15 minutes and out within an hour with splint and crutches. Even got X-Ray.

[mdorazio]

What city? Most of us in this thread live in larger cities. When I lived in LA and had to go to the ER, the wait was 5 hours and they literally rolled a cart over and made me prepay my insurance deductible (several hundred dollars) before a doctor even saw me. Helped a friend get to the ER in Phoenix and it was about 3 hours.

[xwdv]

Cleveland