Posted on 12/05/2025 7:14:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It starts with a call. A sore knee, a lingering cough, a changing mole - nothing urgent - but not quite ignorable. The receptionist is polite, but the first available appointment is three weeks away.
For millions of Americans, health care begins with a wait. For many, walk-in clinics have replaced family medicine.
“People have started to accept that,” Dr. Dorothy Serna, a primary care physician who left traditional practice for a concierge model, told The Epoch Times. “They think, ‘I can’t get my doctor, so I won’t even try. I’ll just go to urgent care. I’ll wait. I’ll Google it.’”
Such scenarios have become the norm rather than the exception. What was once a simple task—seeing your doctor when you need care—has evolved into a complex navigation challenge that requires strategy, persistence, and insider knowledge to overcome.
More than 100 million people lack a regular primary care provider, a figure that continues to climb each year. New patients wait an average of 23.5 days to see a primary care doctor, often longer in cities. Even existing patients face significant waits, although generally shorter than those of new patients.
The problem continues to grow. A 2025 survey by AMN Healthcare found the average wait for a physician appointment in major metro areas has stretched to 31 days—up 19 percent since 2022 and nearly 50 percent since 2004. In Boston, patients wait more than two months, the longest wait time in the nation.
Across all six specialties, average wait times range widely, from weeks in some cities to just days in others. The Epoch Times
If this is the situation in cities with the most doctors, rural patients can expect even worse outcomes. Only 9 percent of U.S. physicians practice in those communities, leaving patients to travel farther, wait longer, and often go without care altogether.
The problem is reshaping how Americans access health care. Primary care, traditionally the system’s front door, has become its biggest bottleneck. Routine problems escalate into emergencies, and preventive care gets delayed.
The shortage is structural. Nearly half of primary care doctors are older than 55, and few younger physicians are choosing the field. Only 15 percent remain in primary care five years after completing their training. The United States has 67 primary care doctors per 100,000 people—about half the rate of Canada. While many other wealthy nations devote 7 percent to 14 percent of their health budgets to primary care, the United States spends less than 5 percent.
Preventive medicine is collapsing into fragmented, reactive care, and patients are left waiting while disease advances.
Seeing a specialist presents its own set of challenges. Even after securing a coveted primary care appointment and obtaining a referral, patients face another round of lengthy delays.
Specialist wait times vary dramatically by field and location. New patients wait about two weeks for orthopedic surgery, a month for cardiology and dermatology, and six weeks for obstetrics and gynecology—and often longer in big cities.
The referral process itself creates additional friction. Insurance authorizations can add weeks to the timeline. Paperwork gets lost between offices. Some specialists require specific diagnostic tests before scheduling, adding another layer of delay.
Online patient forums overflow with stories of months-long waits for neurology consultations and gastroenterology appointments that stretch nearly a year.
Among the six specialties surveyed, some patients face extreme delays. The Epoch Times
Whether it’s finding a new doctor, landing a specialist appointment, or just breaking through your provider’s backlog, the challenge is access. Some patients manage access by knowing how the system works. The following tactics won’t fix the shortage, but they can shift the odds in our favor.
Start With People
The fastest way to find a doctor isn’t online—it’s through people. A 2022 study in Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation found that most patients turn to family, friends, or trusted professionals.
Try these approaches:
Go Digital
Hospital and insurer websites often have hidden scheduling tools—but you have to know where to look.
Expand Your Definition of ‘Doctor’
When appointment backlogs stretch for weeks, the key may be to expand what “care” looks like.
Be Flexible About How–and Where–You’re Seen
When options are limited, flexibility can make the difference between waiting weeks and getting care today.
Once you’ve identified the provider or practice that fits your needs, the next challenge is securing an appointment. That’s where persistence, flexibility, and a few behind-the-scenes strategies can make all the difference.
Ask whether your doctor’s office can do the same by contacting the specialist or testing center on your behalf. If that doesn’t work, an outside advocate may help. A 2024 review found that patients with advocates began treatment sooner in 70 percent of cases. The National Association of Healthcare Advocacy and the Patient Advocate Foundation connect patients with professional or nonprofit advocates.
The U.S. health care system may be slow and fragmented, but it is not impenetrable. With preparation, patience, and the right questions, it is still possible to find a way through. That might mean asking for multiple referrals, using portals to spot cancellations, or simply knowing how to frame urgency without panic.
These recommendations aren’t shortcuts so much as survival skills—the small, persistent acts patients use to keep the system from shutting them out entirely. It’s about finding agency in a system that often rewards persistence over passivity.
What’s Next: Getting the appointment is only the first victory. Making it count is the next—something we’ll tackle in the following article.
The practice had called to schedule a Medicare Annual exam for February. I have Brochitis and a lingering cough. Scheduled an appointment on Friday afternoon to see a Physicians Assistant at 10:30 Monday. Also scheduled the Annual for February with a new doctor at the practice. (Dr. I had been seeing was moving to a different location within the hospital system.)
If you can get by without an MD you can probably get in sooner.
A.W. Nice thick “Seam of Meme”! (Of course, copied and forwarded!)
Did you not then go to the ER to find relief? Of course you would have had to wait depending on the seriousness of your case. Didn't you have a regular doctor you could have called? I chose to wait a couple of weeks to see my family doctor about my broken foot instead of sitting in an ER. I'd had plans to visit my niece and her family at their camp for a week, and I wasn't about to cancel that, even for a broken foot. While I was at my niece's, I called my family doctor's office and made an appointment to see her once I got back home. I didn't even know at that time that I had broken my foot.
I remember sitting in the ER with my sons for at least four hours or more when they broke or sprained something. That was when they were little. They're 59 and 54 now, so being seen right away has only gotten worse over the years. Most of the problem is because of the influx of illegals into this country. I'm fortunate in that I live in a small city in central NY, and see my family doctor and specialists on a regular basis. When I leave my appointments with them, they've made my next appointment for 4-6 months later, and given me my lab work orders. I'm 78, and it's rare that I have to see them in between appointments. The broken foot in August was the most recent thing that caused me to see her before my regularly scheduled appointment later this month.
Do you have a family doctor you see regularly? If not, maybe if you found a a doctor and saw them on a regular basis, if you did feel unwell, and felt you needed to see a doctor, your being an established patient, would make it easier for you to get in sooner.
When I was a little girl in the 50's, I regularly got ear infections. We didn't have a car, but our family doctor made house calls. He'd come to the house, give me a shot of penicillin in the butt, and my mother paid him $2.00 for the home visit. My Dad worked on the NY Central Railroad. I have no clue if he had health insurance coverage for his family at the time. I remember my mother telling me that when she gave birth to me at the hospital in 1947, the bill was $50. According to her, they made women stay in the hospital for a week after delivery. That $50 was still a lot of money in 1947. When my father retired as a track foreman in 1971 at age 65, even with overtime wages, he barely made over $10,000. And we still didn't own a car.
(Example; but not the same one)
One Christmas Eve I was in the exam room waiting ... waiting ... waiting. Then the hall got quiet. I looked out the door, the lights were off, and nobody was there. They had closed the office. Very creepy
Did you not then go to the ER to find relief? Of course you would have had to wait depending on the seriousness of your case. Didn’t you have a regular doctor you could have called?
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Here’s the deal. I live in Wake Forest NC and the urgent care is down the street. My doctor is an hour away. So of course after I stalked out of urgent care, I called my doctor and got a sick appointment. But had to drive an hour to it. Living in Raleigh NC is great except that everything is so far away.
You never mentioned how far a hospital ER is from where you live, but you apparently chose to by-pass that option.
I have to drive about 45 minutes to see my family doctor, and a half-hour for all my specialists. When my family doctor moved to another medical group a couple of years ago, I decided I didn't want to have to find another doctor, as I was happy with her, so I decided to follow her to her new location, even if it was farther away.
I've had to drive an hour to doctor appointments for other treatments over the years. I drive my youngest son 2 1/2 hours for appointments in Rochester, NY with his Cardiologist who treats his Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Your complaint to me seems to be that you feel inconvenienced having to drive an hour for treatment. If you want to be treated, or need treatment, you go, no matter how far away it is. You could always find a doctor closer to you to save you the travel time.
Yeah...that's creepy, and total incompetence. Did you have to call someone in order to be able to leave?
I did a search and found his Find-a-Grave page that shows he passed in 1957 at the age of 57. I don't remember my mother ever mentioning it. By then I had had my tonsils and adenoids out, so no future house calls were necessary. He was originally from New Hampshire, and is buried in a Churchville cemetery. He obviously delivered all four of us kids because he was on the staff at Rochester General Hospital at the time, which is where we were all born. That hospital was torn down in 1966 and replaced with Section 8 housing. A second campus for Rochester General was opened in 1956 on Portland Avenue, and has expanded with medical buildings in various parts of the city and outlying suburbs over the years. My niece runs one of the labs at that hospital on the Portland Avenue campus.
“Did you have to call someone in order to be able to leave?”
It was pre-cellphone days. I called Hubby from the front desk to let him know. Then I was able to get out the front door and to the car, but if I’d forgotten anything, it would’ve been a problem. In California, so not bitter cold, but definitely dark.
Did all doctors have stuffed marlins in the 50s? And did all moms have their kids’ baby booties coasted in copper?
You never mentioned how far a hospital ER is from where you live, but you apparently chose to by-pass that option.
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I am not an idiot. I never go to the ER unless it’s an emergency. A sick call is not an emergency. Unless I can’t breathe, had a heart attack, needed an emergency transfusion or some actual emergency, I am not going to the emergency room which is for emergencies.
LOL!! I had my first son's shoes (he was born in 1966) coated in copper. I've still got them along with his baptismal outfit. I said screw the copper shoes for the second one. I did get photos of them done when they were babies and through their early years before going to school. My mother had photos taken of my two older sisters and my older brother in the 40's when they were toddlers. When I came in 1947, she must have figured she didn't want to break the photographer's camera. There are no pictures of me until I went to grammar school.
I'm glad you didn't need a code to use the front desk phone to call your husband. Yours is the first time I've ever heard of that happening to someone, but I'm sure there are plenty of other horror stories like it. I hope they didn't bill you for the visit you never got.
“I’m glad you didn’t need a code to use the front desk phone to call your husband.”
This was in the days when “Dial 9 to get an outside line” was considered high tech code. ;) Mid-’90s, IIRC.
Yes,
You should consider that and do some research.
Some places are a lot better than others in this department, but I have never seen anybody to print something about it.
I do not know, you should research, but it appears to me that south, southwest and CA are worse than the rest.
Phoenix, where I live, is terrible.
When I moved here from Midwest, I started looking for a doctor.
I asked for a recommendation, they laughed on me.
“Forget the quality! Just hope somebody, not too far from your house, will take you in!”
Phoenix actually have some cutting edge medical facilities.
Mayo, Barrow, so you can get some top notch healthcare here, but the waiting list is just terrible.
If can wait, you maybe OK, or even very good, but if you need care quickly, you may die, before you get any help!
Like few of my friends and acquittances.
Before you make the move, try to investigate the waiting lists for doctors.
I, personally, did not and was quite shocked!
So I guess, it is not that great in TX either!
Here, in AZ, cardiologists are not in that short of supply.
My waiting list is only like a month or two?!
Definitely better than 8 months, but, like I mentioned, I remember waiting lists of a day or two.
Obama took care about that!
Blame it on the jabs.
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