But receiving treatment at the ER can be up to 12 times more expensive than at a doctor’s office, contributing $32 billion in wasted spending on hospital care that could have been delivered in a lower-cost setting. Given the ever-rising wait times to access ambulatory care, it’s no surprise that ER wait times are also on the rise. We also found that although 84% of Americans have an established relationship with a primary care physician, 65% would still visit the ER if they couldn’t get in to see a doctor at the office quickly enough. In a survey my company conducted, nearly 3 in 4 Americans said it was easier to go to the ER than to get a doctor’s appointment. According to a study published in Preventive Medicine Reports, delays in medical care may increase morbidity and mortality risk among those with underlying, preventable, and treatable medical conditions. Long wait times are not just an inconvenience, they’re a public health disaster. It’s vital for patients, providers, and the system on the whole - and Zocdoc is far from the only solution here. But solving this is not just good for Zocdoc. advertisementĪs the CEO of Zocdoc, a company whose entire existence is predicated on empowering patients to quickly and easily get in to see a health care provider, I recognize that it may seem self-serving to focus on reducing long wait times. And while residents of New York can consider themselves “fortunate” to have an average wait time of just over two weeks to access care (17.4 days), people in Portland, Boston and Minneapolis are facing the longest average wait times at 45.6 days, 33.8 days, and 30.8 days respectively. Wait times grew across dermatology (+7%), cardiology (+26%), and orthopedic surgery (+42%) between 20. The average wait time for an OB-GYN appointment is 31.4 days, a 19% increase from 2017.
The story is even worse when you look under the hood at certain specialties and markets. In their 2022 survey, the wait for a new patient appointment increased to an average of 26 days. That year, the national average wait to get in to see a new physician was 21 days, an unacceptable amount of time to wait to access care. In 2004, the physician search firm Merritt Hawkins first issued their Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times. Opinion: Long waits to see a doctor are a public health crisis
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