How is this a thing when there are conditions that could likely get drastically worse in between the symptoms showing and the actual appointment date? And also people getting no assurance it’s not something life threatening causing extra anxiety and stress?
I have no expertise in economics or the medical industry so I’d appreciate any insights.
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While there are a lot of specialists Doctors, there’s only ever a handful in any particular field.
Depending on your region there may be few of a specific specialty, or one, or even none.
Some specialties will very quickly accumulate a list of patients with chronic problems that require frequent visits limiting their ability to take on new patients.
While many specialists have limited clinic days for patients as they have to spend many days performing surgery or doing rotations at hospitals.
Some also don’t work as a specialist full-time. Their specialty is so specific that they’ll only get paid for 1 or 2 days a week as a specialist and spend the rest as a General Practitioner or hospitalist.
Specialists also often require a referral which depending on their workload and their staff can take weeks to process.
Doctors will assess the severity of your condition on a visit and if it’s truly urgent there’s things they can do to speed things up, but there’s also a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ in the industry that you can’t avoid.
Some Doctors are legit putting in a lot of hours and trying to address ever single patient they can, but just like in any other job there’s an equal amount of Doctors that just don’t answer their damn pager.
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