[D13Fd]

I've seen this too, in the northeast US. I didn't go to our family doctor of 10+ years for 18 months during COVID-19. When I called for a new appointment, they said I had was no longer a patient and had to wait at least 90 days for an appointment to address a painful condition. I still haven't gone back, and now I just use urgent care if needed.

I had similar problems with a specialist. Their appointments are typically six months out, and if you need something more urgent, the answer is "sorry that's all we can do." My last actual appointment, after the ~six-month wait, was a simple 15-minute telehealth visit. It's insane.

I have great insurance and I've never had any problem paying. It's amazing to me that doctors seem to really push back against having patients, or their patients having appointments. Isn't this how they make money? What kind of weird market effect incentivizes this behavior?

It's interesting that dentists and oral surgeons seem to be the opposite. I've never had a problem finding one and they usually seem welcoming, happy to help, and glad to have the business.

[phil21]

Every doctor I personally know is double booked at least a substantial portion of every single day. They count on last minute cancellations and no shows just like airlines do in order to maintain their schedules.

Making friends with folks in the medical field is eye opening to say the least. The system is operating redlined and has been since before Covid. Covid just caused the fractures to finally start showing to the average person.

The real thing coming for us is that every doctor I know other than some specialists are simply counting down the days until they can leave the field of direct patient care entirely. Whether this be early retirement, paying off student debt and bouncing, or making a lateral move to research or a tech firm. The field has gotten to be untenable for many, typically the ones who actually care. The profession as a whole has lost its personal agency to the administrative class. It’s not idle talk either - plenty have actually already executed on these plans.

[mrguyorama]

>The profession as a whole has lost its personal agency to the administrative class.

This has happened all across the American economy, in every business, every industry, every company.

My father was a grocery store manager for decades. He retired and went to be a contractor for a decade. The grocery chain recently tempted him back, by offering him top position (over other candidates, who kinda deserved the position, but that's just how much this company loved my dad, he was literally legendary in the company) in their "show off store" which they had purchased to scoop up the location from a competitor that they want to keep out of the market (yay capitalism) and spent millions to completely re-roof, rebuild, redesign as their premier location, to be used exclusively to lose money in a busy market, to show off for the C-Suite, and to shoot commercials in. My father was clearly super excited to get back to the company, to get back to management which he is very good at, and to get stable health insurance.

He gave up after a few months. Everything is that kind of awful "automated" that any software developer could immediately recognize, with KPIs and useless metrics created by someone inexplicably above you who has zero familiarity with what those KPIs even measure.

No more agency for lower management. Just shut up and follow the whims of the useless nepo-baby who runs your division as it continuously fails to do anything.

[doubleg72]

Definitely not the case in my area, my wife enjoys being a provider.

[AlwaysRock]

It is really frustrating but I've found that most doctors and hospitals have two systems. One for new or very infrequent patients. One for established or regular patients. The latter gets appointments fairly quickly in most cases.

It is rather messed up but One Medical (now owned by Amazon) and a few other services can be worth the money because they have access to the fast track appointment line.

I only know this because after many many months of searching for a primarily care doctor and waiting for an appointment I was told about this. New patient scheduling for my doc is months out. If I email and ask if I can come in next week they always say how about tomorrow/the next day?

[soco]

Maybe there are simply not enough doctors, so their waiting list is exactly that, months long?

[nradov]

Right, we have a shortage of physicians and the problem will only get worse as the population grows older and sicker. The first thing we need to do is get Congress to increase funding for residency programs in order to eliminate that bottleneck.

https://savegme.org/