I'm not from the US but once I was in Orlando and took a friend to the hospital cause she wasn't feeling well, she had insurance. We waited 4 hrs to even see a doctor, I have never waited that long even in public hospitals in my country

Yep. God help you if you need a specialist because he's likely to respond faster.

I called my primary for my annual checkup, they can't get me in for 2 months. It's getting bad out there

Elective surgery means surgery that can improve quality of life, but is not otherwise life saving right?

Canada also has the lowest number of doctors per 10k, and the lowest wait for primary care.

The US has more doctors, but the highest time to primary care.

I don't know many elective surgeries that can be scheduled without a primary care referring the patient to the surgeon for consult. Not to mention, beside plastic surgery, it's usually a case where the patient has no idea they could benefit from the elective surgery.

That graph is highly misleading.

What stands out to me on that chart is that the US is more than twice as bad as any other country when it comes to wait time for primary care appointments.

Yeah. I had crippling inflammation and it took months to get into a rheumatologist.

True. Even my primary care doctor needs 3 months advance scheduling to find me a slot.

certain health care facilities. i know for things like medi-caid/care it can be weeks to months in advance to see a specialist. they usually are quite fast in scheudling though. if anyone had kaiser, you can see a doctor quite quickly.

ALso URGENT care is a thing. i can see that for private practices, or doctors that Are swamped because of short staffing.

Kaiser

Maybe it could also be related to the difference between an HMO and normal insurance?

I am also Canadian and having used both healthcare system, I want to tell you that your Canadian conservative friends and conservative political talking points are all lying to you. It's far faster in Canada than in America.

My point of view was from a suburb in Toronto and Vancouver vs NYC and Seattle.

Am Canadian. Got stung by a wasp on the foot last Saturday. Got worried yesterday when i noticed the red area around the sting grew. Contacted my gp's office at the CLSC, got an appointment to see her this morning, got a scrip for antibiotics since she thinks it's likely an infection, picked it up this pm and starting it tonight. 0$ for the consult, antibiotics are ~60$ (that's the only place my private insurance kicks in, my out of pocket is 12$).

And this is a very standard experience in Quebec - with 1 caveat: my family's fortunate enough to have an assigned GP, there's a shortage and a pretty long (2y I think) waiting list; on the flip side there are a ton of walking/24/48h appointment clinics (also 0$) for those without.

When i say 0$, i want to be clear: it's not free, it's part of what's covered by the RAMQ, which is the provincial health insurance company, but our yearly premium for that insurance is at most 800$.

That's what happens when the health insurance is designed to hedge and amortize social costs rather than generate profits...

I also like to mention that it was in a very high end city in the Seattle area.

At 7am, I was considering leaving and waiting at home until a small clinic opens, but they finally saw me.

Plus more preventative care. Get something checked out early rather than waiting months and now being treated inpatient.

Tbf, for profit insurance companies also have a vested interest in keeping you healthy. Healthy people require less care which means more profits.

It's just that insurance companies also have a vested interest to make sure that they don't pay out for expensive treatments either. You can be healthy and then get cancer which is expensive vs be a sloth whose only form of exercise is walking back and forth from the front door to their bed and has heart issues.

Edit: judging by the down votes, I suppose it wasn't clear that I'm not trying to defend for profit health insurance. Let's be clear here: single payer is the best way to do healthcare. I was only trying to point out that the incentive to keep your customers healthy is the same regardless of who is paying. The only difference is the motive. One wants to make sure they have money for shareholders while the other wants to make sure they have money for everyone to get care.

Aussie here, I just booked to see an endo, wait time was about 10 days

I have a chronic pain issue and my primary referred me to a specialist that took sox months to see. They referred me to a different specialist with a six month wait-list. They then referred me to a more specific sub-specialist for another three month wait. I live in a reasonably well-off and well populated area, so I'm not out in flyover country or anything. I've heard the same from many people. Short wait-lists in America is a myth.

We desperately need more doctors, and those doctors need to cost less.

Free college would make a big difference for that.

Honestly? I can't do the searching for you this time, but it's all the top results when you look for average wait times between countries. The data is easy to access. Pretty much all developed nations have similar numbers, with wide variation between specialties.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean but I would attribute it to four main reasons:

• I'm rural and the quality of physicians here leaves a bit to be desired
• Physicians are overworked and as a result, generally uncaring and unable to provide substantial help.
• It takes months to get the ball rolling on every step of the process
• Insurance is hellbent on denying everything

My situation didn't improve until I was finally referred to a couple physicians in the right specialty who truly care and were willing to fight my insurance.

if we had Canada's healthcare, we'd be waiting forever.

Or another approach, calculate how much time it takes to save the cash for any given procedure and compare that to any socialized care. Say for an MRI, lab work, root canal, etc.

USA system is great if your wealthy. Otherwise you might as well be in a developing country as far as your access to all these high tech treatments we need massive profits on.

As a Canadian the last time that I had to go to the ER I was in and out in 2 hours and it cost me nothing out of pocket.

Now when it comes to procedures themselves oh there's a bit of a wait. But generally if it's serious you get bumped ahead cuz we use triage rules for most things.

This is the new doctor 😭😭.

I called another place and they actually said to call back in a couple months. The healthcare system is so consolidated in my state that there's only a few systems to go to. Maine.

I could schedule something hours away but then I'd need to take time off work to go or I won't go because of the inconvenience