scheduling doctors appointments

Everyone tells you it's so much better having health insurance than
having to rely on the NHS and how you don't have to wait for surgery etc
etc etc.

I'm really not finding this to be the case and I just wanted to see if
this was a thing local to us or if it's a more widespread problem.

For a non urgent appointment with our pediatrician, we have to wait 2-3
weeks - the knock on effect from that is that things that aren't really
urgent but equally cannot wait 2-3 weeks end up having to be urgent
appointments and then not with our doctor. Compare that to back home, I
could almost always get non urgent appointments in under a week and
urgent appointment would only not be with our named doctor if he wasn't
working.

Similar with our doctor, 2-3 week wait for a non urgent appointment.

Seeing a specialist varies wildly, but it's been fairly normal for us to
wait several weeks, similarly scheduling surgery, you may be the one
that gets to schedule it rather than waiting for a letter telling you
the date, but it's still months away.

The latest is an appointment we had scheduled 6 months ago got moved, we
can't do the new date, they have no openings at all before Christmas and
haven't opened the January scheduling.

Is this normal, or unlucky?

Cheers
Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:
Everyone tells you it's so much better having health insurance than
having to rely on the NHS and how you don't have to wait for surgery etc
etc etc.

I'm really not finding this to be the case and I just wanted to see if
this was a thing local to us or if it's a more widespread problem.

For a non urgent appointment with our pediatrician, we have to wait 2-3
weeks - the knock on effect from that is that things that aren't really
urgent but equally cannot wait 2-3 weeks end up having to be urgent
appointments and then not with our doctor. Compare that to back home, I
could almost always get non urgent appointments in under a week and
urgent appointment would only not be with our named doctor if he wasn't
working.

Similar with our doctor, 2-3 week wait for a non urgent appointment.

Seeing a specialist varies wildly, but it's been fairly normal for us to
wait several weeks, similarly scheduling surgery, you may be the one
that gets to schedule it rather than waiting for a letter telling you
the date, but it's still months away.

The latest is an appointment we had scheduled 6 months ago got moved, we
can't do the new date, they have no openings at all before Christmas and
haven't opened the January scheduling.

Is this normal, or unlucky?

I don't think it's uncommon. Different practices do
operate differently, so you may find a place where you can get
appointments sooner (or not) if you want to shop around. Specialists
do tend to get booked up.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:26:54 -0700, Anne Rogers
wrote:
Everyone tells you it's so much better having health insurance than
having to rely on the NHS and how you don't have to wait for surgery etc
etc etc.

I'm really not finding this to be the case and I just wanted to see if
this was a thing local to us or if it's a more widespread problem.

For a non urgent appointment with our pediatrician, we have to wait 2-3
weeks - the knock on effect from that is that things that aren't really
urgent but equally cannot wait 2-3 weeks end up having to be urgent
appointments and then not with our doctor. Compare that to back home, I
could almost always get non urgent appointments in under a week and
urgent appointment would only not be with our named doctor if he wasn't
working.

Similar with our doctor, 2-3 week wait for a non urgent appointment.

Seeing a specialist varies wildly, but it's been fairly normal for us to
wait several weeks, similarly scheduling surgery, you may be the one
that gets to schedule it rather than waiting for a letter telling you
the date, but it's still months away.

The latest is an appointment we had scheduled 6 months ago got moved, we
can't do the new date, they have no openings at all before Christmas and
haven't opened the January scheduling.

Is this normal, or unlucky?

That is pretty normal. IIRC, you are from the UK but now live in the
US? Has this been hard for you to adjust to?
Marie

That is pretty normal. IIRC, you are from the UK but now live in the
US? Has this been hard for you to adjust to?

yup, that's right

in some ways the difference in medical care has been beneficial to me,
if I go to a physical therapist and find they don't have relevant
experience or aren't grasping my problem, I can switch, on the otherhand
it seems that because there isn't an umbrella system, there aren't
targets and published figures, which though there is a continual stream
of news reports about data being recorded in different ways to make it
seem like the targets are met, does actually seem to have helped in the
UK. Routinely having to wait 2-3 weeks to see a named doctor would not
be ok and you'd be able to access those stats to find out who was bad
and who wasn't and if they don't meet targets they get less pay, here it
veers more to if the schedule is full, the money is coming in, whether
or not that meets the needs of the local population is far less
relevant. It's not exactly trivial to navigate the NHS and figure out
how to get what you need, but it actually seems harder, as if there is a
lack of pathways.

Anne