The wait to see an internist can be as long as 17 days for new patients and six days for regular patients, the survey found. The longest mean average wait times for new-patient office visits was 24 days.
Lest you are tempted to dismiss these results as the whinings of a privileged class of affluent people, it is time to jettison doctor stereotypes. The average primary care physician, gatekeeper for most health plans, makes $72,000 per year. Medical students begin practice with an average debt of $170,000.
We as doctors are getting killed here folks. And out of the $2.3 trillion we spend on healthcare in a given year, docs only take home about 10% of that.
The middlemen are killing us – both patients and doctors.