3 ms·

I'm going to enlighten you to the sad reality of life in the United States. Go to your GP before being forwarded to a hospital? It takes months to get an appoin

I'm going to enlighten you to the sad reality of life in the United States. Go to your GP before being forwarded to a hospital? It takes months to get an appointment with your GP. That's assuming you have insurance - the GP requires money up-front. It's going to be over $100 for the visit. Why are there so few GPs in the United States? Because that's how the medical insurance companies keep costs low. You need to maximize the doctor to patient ratio to drive down costs (which really just maximizes profits - Americans pay several hundred dollars per month for medical insurance). The emergency room? By law they have to admit you and treat you, whether you're able to pay or not. Guess what happens?

xboxnolifes 5y ago
I see this claim of months to see a GP a lot, but I feels it's doing nothing but mislead non-Americans (and maybe even other Americans) about the state of healthcare in the US. Yes, there are a lot of issues that I could talk about, but I have never in my life had to wait months for a GP visit outside of scheduling a new routine checkup with a new doctor. Any time I have been sick, or people I know who have been sick, a GP appointment has never been more than 2 weeks out. usually within the current week or start of next. Yes, two weeks is seriously not good if you potentially getting really sick but not sick enough for ER, but it's not months.
- JohnTHaller 5y ago
  Having to wait a month for a PCP or specialist appointment isn't that unusual in the US. It varies drastically based on what insurance plan you're on. My family member was booking their PCP 6 weeks out. My girlfriend's breast surgeon followup post cancer appointment was cancelled when her PCP's office didn't get the referral in in time and the next appointment was in Feb 2022. Fun fact side note: A brain MRI w/ and w/o contrast in NYC has a retail price of $6,700.

xboxnolifes 5y ago

I see this claim of months to see a GP a lot, but I feels it's doing nothing but mislead non-Americans (and maybe even other Americans) about the state of healthcare in the US. Yes, there are a lot of issues that I could talk about, but I have never in my life had to wait months for a GP visit outside of scheduling a new routine checkup with a new doctor. Any time I have been sick, or people I know who have been sick, a GP appointment has never been more than 2 weeks out. usually within the current week or start of next. Yes, two weeks is seriously not good if you potentially getting really sick but not sick enough for ER, but it's not months.

JohnTHaller 5y ago
Having to wait a month for a PCP or specialist appointment isn't that unusual in the US. It varies drastically based on what insurance plan you're on. My family member was booking their PCP 6 weeks out. My girlfriend's breast surgeon followup post cancer appointment was cancelled when her PCP's office didn't get the referral in in time and the next appointment was in Feb 2022. Fun fact side note: A brain MRI w/ and w/o contrast in NYC has a retail price of $6,700.