If you understand queuing theory, making your queue longer does NOT increase throughput. If you can handle 50 visits per week a longer queue will not change th

If you understand queuing theory, making your queue longer does NOT increase throughput. If you can handle 50 visits per week a longer queue will not change that. If there are more requests for visits than you can handle the queue will eventually become infinitely long. The only reason for longer queues is to ration care by only allowing so many visits per year. I see the reason for this happening as due to something that started a couple decades ago. People started saying "I paid for medical care, so I'm going to use it as much as I want" and they started going in to see a doctor for every minor thing. The medical systems responded by requiring appointments months in advance. If you have to wait three months for an appointment you can only get in four times a year. Thus the people who were coming in every week were blocked. Essentially the people started abusing the system and the system used its scheduling power to counter that abuse. Over time it became standard practice, the clinicians like it because it makes their jobs easier. I would have thought the insurance companies would have hated it, because less care means less volume overall which means their prices would have to go down (paying more is used to justify higher prices so for a fixed profit percentage more volume means more profit). Maybe this is an area where the clinicians got their way, or maybe the insurance companies just couldn't find a way to claim they had control over scheduling. Usually doctors keep some appointment slots open to handle patients that need quicker care and their assistants will use those slots if they think you need it. Otherwise long queues are a way to ration non-urgent care.