True. That was the main selling point of HMO membership for families with a lot of little children like us. But actually getting to see a doctor was difficult and we had to learn the "quirks" of the system.
Quirk 1. To succeed as an HMO parent, you must exaggerate the severity of the child's condition or learn an alternate coping method. Shortly after I joined, an acquaintance told me I would have to "exaggerate" the urgency of the children's medical conditions in order to see a doctor within a day or so. I don't like to exaggerate. I would try to accurately describe what was wrong with the child, and the person on the other end of the line, who was used to exaggeration, would automatically discount my level of concern. I didn't become an exaggerator, so much as I developed an ability to ask probing questions.
Quirk 2. You must immediately decide whether your child's illness or injury will become serious enough to warrant medical assistance. This is what I found really odd. The HMO's operators would only make same day appointments for patients who had been seriously ill/injured for less than a day (or maybe two). If you were sick or injured for a longer time, you had to make a "future" appointment. So much for bearing up under illness or waiting to see what course the illness was following.
Our HMO is now allowing members to chose Primary Care Physicians from outside the center. From what I can tell, the doctors at the center now have a lot of free time. It looks like a lot of people prefer co-paying to going to the center.