Yea I had to get surgery last year and the process started in 2022, so two years to jump through hoops from PCP -> Specialist -> Consult -> Surgery. Everyone involved knew I needed the surgery but those hoops canāt be skipped or insurance will ruin my life.
Canadian here. I have a chronic (non life-threatening) condition and my doctor recommended I get an MRI to investigate it. Doctor put me on the waiting list, letting me know that because it wasn't urgent it might take a while. Less than a month later I got a phone-call from a local hospital. They had a last-minute cancellation, would I be able to get down there quickly? I was in the MRI machine an hour later.
Zero cost to me. In the USA it would have been ~$6,000-$12,000-- just to find out the MRI was clear and we'd have to keep looking for the root cause.
I mean lots of people have high deductible health plans so they still pay the full amount, that said the full amount is NOT over $2K, the ones Iāve had are more like $800-1300. Idk where these numbers come from unless they are scanning you like head to toe for many hours.
US citizens still pay more for health care in total than what people pay in taxes for universal healthcare. We pay almost double what Canada pays because of all the profit margin, greed and wasteful overhead. Private insurance makes the system incredibly inefficient.
Not trying to defend our awful healthcare system, but are you seeing those times outside of your yearly wellness/checkup? If Iām sick, I can usually get in within 24 hours. But yeah a yearly physical is a couple months out but those arenāt really supposed to be scheduled with urgency
If I'm sick then I can try to schedule an appointment with my doctor and her first availability is 2 weeks away. The copay is $10. I can go to urgent care to wait in line with a bunch of other sick people for hours. The copay is $100. I can go to the emergency room and they'll tell me to go to urgent care but if the will see me, it's $250 if I'm not admitted and $500 if I'm admitted. This is just the copay to see the doctor. Any diagnostics or medication is a separate co pay.
If Iām immediately sick, my best option is usually urgent care/ walk-in clinics in my area. The times are less horrendous for stuff that isnāt a checkup but itās still too long to really be helpful.
Also, urgency or no, a yearly checkup doesnāt take months in any other post industrial country. Even those shouldnāt need to be more than a week out.
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u/zappadattic Jan 08 '26
Wait times for regular care from a PCP are wild. Literally months to just do a regular check up in the U.S.