One recent study showed the average wait time to get a primary care appointment was 18 days. In some areas, patients waited an average of 32 days.
What to Do When Your Doctor Isn’t Calling Back
By Allie Volpe | May 31, 2019
Establish communication protocol
To lower your chances of dealing with an unresponsive doctor, take the preventive step of asking a new healthcare provider about their preferred methods of communication, says David J. Zetter, founder and lead consultant with Zetter HealthCare Management Consultants. Does the physician want all communication to take place through the patient portal? Are scheduling calls the only telephone communication the practice accepts? “I’ve got clients that will not accept any patient calls for script refills, medical record requests and even in some cases, they have to request an appointment through the portal,” Zetter says. “That’s just an example of how things some things may be changing and patients aren’t aware.”
While making a phone call might seem like the fastest and most efficient way to acknowledge a medical query, practices are often busy and understaffed, says Julia Pinckney, a patient advocate and CEO of AmbassaCare. Doctors might not receive all their messages if their schedules are packed or notes get lost in the shuffle. “They’re not going to return the call if they are buried,” she says.
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Three-quarters of Americans give U.S. healthcare affordability a D or F rating, according to a new poll from Gallup and West Health.
More than 5,000 Americans were asked to grade the U.S. healthcare system overall and regarding affordability, equity, accessibility and quality. Overall, 44% of Americans gave the entire system a poor or failing grade. One in 3 said healthcare affordability deserved an F.
The report also reveals new findings on what may be driving these perceptions: high rates of skipping or rationing treatment and medication due to cost, disparities in access and quality of care and increasing concern about the ability to pay for healthcare through retirement.
“This is a great country to be hit by a bus because we have some of the most cutting-edge interventions,” said Tim Lash, president of West Health. “But unfortunately, our life and our longevity and our health, our mental health, our ability to manage and prevent chronic conditions that go from birth to the oldest among us, that's where our healthcare system really fails: its ability to deliver the highest value care, because we've been incentivized for so long to just drive profit and drive volume.”
Since 2018, West Health-Gallup have together tracked Americans' views of the U.S. health system. The "West Health-Gallup 2022 Healthcare in America Report" revealed that only 22% of Americans give the overall health system an A or B rating; the same percentage was given to health equity.
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