Dive Brief:
- A new study finds that patients are waiting an average of 18 days to be seen by a doctor, a delay some are attributing to the flood of newly-insured patients under the ACA.
- The study, which was done by physician staffing and consulting firm Merritt Hawkins, looked at appointments for commonly-used specialty physicians in 15 major cities, and covered almost 1,400 medical offices across the U.S..
- The longest wait to see a doctor was in Boston, where the average wait was 45.5 days to schedule an appointment with a family physician, dermatologist, cardiologist, orthopedic surgeon or OB/GYN.
Dive Insight:
It's interesting to note that the city with the longest waits, Boston, is in a state where health reform landed years ago. Does this mean that under the ACA, we'll see similar wait times nationally? Maybe not, but as a Merritt Hawkins exec quoted in Forbes noted, it's certainly going to get worse before it gets better.