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.
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The wait at my urgent care is unbearable. I was actually in the exam room after a long wait in the waiting room. After an interminable wait in the exam room, I walked out. I am not going to be treated that way. Medicine can KMA. I will never go back to my urgent care. It is a joke. The urgency in North Carolina is a joke. Inefficient and stupid care is not good medical care.
My dermatologist told me I was getting a melonama removed by a PA. The hell you say, said I and I went to an actual melanoma canter with an actual surgeon. The PAs I have encountered have not been good.
This particular PCP's office is not participating in my plan for '26, so I just designated a different doctor, who I'll most likely never see. My plan doesn't require referrals, so I usually just go directly to the specialist. A couple of weeks to get in, at most, here in suburban North Jersey.
We’re with a Senior Care agency for our Primary doctors...usually get in within 2-3 days for non-critical appointments.
If we need/want something faster - there’s a number of good “Critical Care” walk-in facilities nearby.
Then there’s the much hated Emergency Room if something bad happens without warning.
I would have done the same. My PCP and his assistants have always recommended the best to take care of a more serious problem like yours.
I can get an appointment in 2 hours at the most, if I yell help.
I'm so sorry to hear that. Do you think the "wide-open spaces" in Texas have something to do with it? It may be hard to have enough doctors want to settle in remote areas.
Here in the densely-populated northeast, I have not experienced any significant wait times. I've been wanting to move to a smaller town in the south for old age, but as I research the amenities, the time it will take to get to a doctor or hospital does seem more daunting in outlying towns.
The kind of medicine his father had practiced, as a country doctor, was obsolete when he started practicing medicine.
The kind of medicine I practiced when I finished medical school is now obsolete.
I am as annoyed as anyone at having to wade through so much time and red tape for an appointment with the doctor.
I do not like having to sit in the doctor's office for long periods. My time is as valuable as theirs.
Today, the doctor works from 8 to 5, or something like that. I worked 24 hours a day. If someone needed me at 3 a.m., I was available by telephone. Today, after the doctor goes home, anyone needing him gets a PA (physician's assistant) who is not a physician but often thinks he is and can be insufferable, and to call the doctor one must listen to an endless answering-machine menu starting with the annoying CYA advice: "If this is a true emergency, call 911 and go to the Emergency Room."
ON THE OTHER HAND:
Technological advances and other miraculous developments have revolutionized health care and human health!
Many of the horrible diseases I encountered in medical school and beyond--and of which I prayed endlessly for a cure--have been cured! Childhood leukemia, e.g., today is cured in most cases! I shall thank God forever for that one miracle alone!
I am now 86 years old and am in excellent health, with blood pressure, pulse, and weight the same as when I was 30. My wife is even healthier.
My son developed diabetes at age 8. I prayed that he would not be taken from me, as was one of my dearest childhood friends who had the same disease and died in his teens. My son is now 46 years old, is happily married, has beautiful children, my grandchildren. You think I don't give thanks constantly and endlessly for that???
I think about all this when I get angry about the annoying inconveniences--and worse--about 21st century medicine.
I will be eternally grateful to God for the miracles--and those yet to come.
All this is reason in itself to fight for the continued ascendancy of Western Civilization.
That wouldn't cover a trip on a Monopoly board. What gives?
What an inspiring post, Savage Beast! I’m so glad for the miracles you have witnessed.
Aside from the lying and financial scamming inflicted by the Feds, WHO, Gates, Fauci and the pharmaceutical industry around the covid pandemic, and wariness of the co-opted government-funded medical research cabals, I think most freepers join you in being grateful for the advances in medical care and most patient-facing physicians.
It’s just a Town perk and appts are within the town. The drivers are all volunteers...mostly retirees. Not part of the Town budget...
We called the clinic in the country only to be told they were not accepting patients. I finally put on a Brooks Brothers button-down with a camel hair sportcoat and walked into the clinic to inquire. We were assigned a doctor and meet with them on Tuesday.
Sweet! I've often thought this would be a worthwhile program for churches to take up.
The drivers are interesting...One was related to Lizzie Borden...the 40 whacker...boy did I have a story to tell my kids that day.
Medicaid or medicare?
IF clinics are even accepting patients.
Texas, established patient. Called for an appointment with my cardiologist last week. Soonest date is the middle of next July. 8 months. They put me on the waiting list if there is a cancellation since I can come on short notice.
Now most of the doctors are typing into their computers instead of listening to you. Lucky if you get a stethoscope on you. Talk to their back as they are leaving for next patient.
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