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US healthcare vs the world: wait times
Phoenix-D
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I would have thrown this into the RP thread, but that was A. a multi-subject cluster-fuck and B. LOCKED, so..not happening, :P
I'd like to know where the popular conception of "Well, at least in the US system you don't have to wait X weeks to have something done!" comes from. Because in my experience that's straight out bullshit.
With my last insurance company, in order to get anything done with my feet I had to:
-make an appointment with my physician. Since my previous doctor wasn't on the list, I had to switch to a new one. It takes a MONTH, on average, to get in to see him.
-Go to that appointment, get a referral.
-Use that referral to get an appointment with the person I really needed to see, my podiatrist. Another month, on average.
Now, followup-visits do get to skip the bullshit middle steps, but that's a different story.
It didn't get any better with immediately-needed care. I had gout last summer. Couldn't get in to see the doctor, went to an urgent care. They decided I was "too young" for it, and had a broken foot.
Later, AFTER it had passed, I got in to see the aforementioned podiatrist. He looked at their X-rays and shook his head. Nope, no broken foot. Of course, by this point he couldn't DO much for me, other than general advice. So I had to live with ~week of limping, and two days of screaming at the top of my fucking lungs whenever I moved my foot.
I now have a relative who urgently needs to see a specialist. Of course, the nearest open appointment is in February.
So, one more time: where'd that "the US is faster" thing come from again?
I'd like to know where the popular conception of "Well, at least in the US system you don't have to wait X weeks to have something done!" comes from. Because in my experience that's straight out bullshit.
With my last insurance company, in order to get anything done with my feet I had to:
-make an appointment with my physician. Since my previous doctor wasn't on the list, I had to switch to a new one. It takes a MONTH, on average, to get in to see him.
-Go to that appointment, get a referral.
-Use that referral to get an appointment with the person I really needed to see, my podiatrist. Another month, on average.
Now, followup-visits do get to skip the bullshit middle steps, but that's a different story.
It didn't get any better with immediately-needed care. I had gout last summer. Couldn't get in to see the doctor, went to an urgent care. They decided I was "too young" for it, and had a broken foot.
Later, AFTER it had passed, I got in to see the aforementioned podiatrist. He looked at their X-rays and shook his head. Nope, no broken foot. Of course, by this point he couldn't DO much for me, other than general advice. So I had to live with ~week of limping, and two days of screaming at the top of my fucking lungs whenever I moved my foot.
I now have a relative who urgently needs to see a specialist. Of course, the nearest open appointment is in February.
So, one more time: where'd that "the US is faster" thing come from again?
Phoenix-D on
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"Shitty but speedy" has a certain merit, as does "speedy but fucking expensive"
"Shitty and slow", on the other hand...
I'm glad you agree the US system sucks.
I'm going to Canada.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Also being in favour of socialised anything makes you a communist.
And being in favour of change makes you a liberal, which also makes you a communist.
Thus if you want to socialise healthcare you are a triple-communist.
Dude socialized healthcare is not the answer. The answer is to become rich. Why don't you just do that?
Clearly he's too lazy to pull himself up by the bootstraps.
Umm... American health care isn't "shitty". It's really, really good. The issues are that it's expensive and unavailable to many. And if you think that adding 40 million more people to the system will make it faster and better, you're sort of silly.
That said, not all doctors are that slow. If my wife needs to get into see a GP, it takes a day or two. If she specifically wants to see her doctor, it can take longer. Speed of service depends on what area you're in. If you're someplace where you have the ability to shop around, it can make things much better. Assuming, of course, your insurance plan allows for it. If you're stuck with something like Kaiser or a particularly unaccomodating HMO, you may be screwed.
The whole business with having to see a GP, then getting assigned to a specialist, then maybe getting assigned to another specialist - yeah, that's a pain, and it can be slow and stupid, but none of the solutions that are seriously being proposed by anyone are going to change this. You're talking about a fundamental problem with the way in which health care is performed in most countries. Fellating the idea of socialized medicine won't do squat.
I can usually get an appointment with my primary physician within a few days. The pikachu doctor (as my stepmother calls the gyno D=) usually takes a couple of weeks.
But yeah, I've never had any month-long waits. WTF.
I will miss the NHS; been nothing but good to me.
It doesnt matter if half the population get excellent health care if the other half gets shitty care.
If a system allows for people to lose their house, their job and all their possesions simply because they got sick, its a bad system.
Because it's not crappy for everyone. Which is sort of the problem. If you have decent insurance, it insulates you from a lot of these problems.
No, doing that won't make it better. I don't see why that means it isn't a problem.
This is the case here, too. You can get lucky on walk-ins, especially if you show up right when they open. We can generally squeeze Maddie in when we show up at 8:00 am. All it takes is one patient running a little late, and we're in.
Sure, it's a problem, but the method you suggested for fixing it won't. That was my point.
US health care needs help. This is clear. But this thread is full of people mischaracterizing the problems and suggesting flawed solutions to address them.
- US health care is very good for those who can afford it.
- It is not any slower than most nations' socialized versions, and in many cases is extremely fast.
These are the strengths. The weaknesses are:
- It's really damned expensive.
- Many people can't afford it, and aren't eligible for government programs.
- Quality of care can vary, especially amongst lower-cost solutions.
- Speed of care, while comparable to most other places in the slower instances, is still too slow.
Now, something like universal health coverage can address the cost issues. But if we want to address quality of care and speed of service, we should be bringing up wholly different solutions than are being proposed. Because just flogging the idea of SOCIALIZATION PLZ won't do shit for the sort of complaints that started the damned thread.
No no, the cold war is over. The buzzword today is terrorist.
Socialized medicine isn't all roses either. Wait times in Canada for all kinds of things can take upwards of 8 months to a year. I can see my doctor in a week to two weeks usually and when I went to the ER a few weeks ago it was very fast, but this is not the norm. Basically, with socialized medicine, certain kinds of people will use it for everything (My dad used to drive an ambulance before he went full time with the fire department. Before you got billed for calling the ambulance, people would call and say they were having chest pains for a free trip to the city. It was an often occurrence.) These people drive up the costs and make the system like Canada's is now. A slowly decaying monstrosity that is being mismanaged. Canada spends more on health care than any other single program.
Prescriptions aren't free here. You'd have to pay or find a job with a health plan.
The free things are doctor's vists, surgery and the like. When I had my appendix out this summer the only thing I had to pay for was a semi-private room (which my work health care covered). If I needed drugs afterwards I would have to pay or get work to cover me.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
But I understand birth control isn't free?
Yeah, there's always going to be an element of luck involved no matter where you are. My, and my family's experience has been overwhelmingly positive for a service that has cost us very little.
Yeah, there are a lot of problems with the system we have here. A lot of problems which could be solved by encouraging people to become PAs and RNs, and allowing more clinic-type care to be given by those people. Really, if I have an ear infection, why is it I have to go see the neurologist (the only doctor at my GP's practice who was available at the time) for her to look in my ear, say "oh, hey, and ear infection; here's some antibiotics and some vicodin?" Shit, I didn't even take college biology, and I could've told her that.
Wait times are always based on a triage system. If your need isn't urgent, your gonna be waiting behind the people who's need is.
And I'm extremely skeptical of how often that story of your fathers actually happened. Not to mention the extremely hefty fines for calling an ambulance for bad reasons.
Our billing manager tells a story about her father needing a hip replacement in Canada. He had to wait 3 months to see someone to assess if he should see a physician for a consult on whether he needs a hip replacement. He waited another 3 months for that consult. He then waited 9 months to actually receive a full hip replacement. The doctor said he'd been in need of that surgery for several years.
The billing manager grew up in Canada and is pretty critical of both their and our systems, she maintains something in the middle needs to be found.
I see this cute little point made in every health care thread, and it's invariably stupid.
We're talking about how to get everyone into the system, so the rhetorical points from that observation are kinda nil. When we're discussing average mileage for cars, should we figure in electric cars? They get infinite gas mileage, so that means that our average gas mileage is infinite! Oh wait, no, that's retarded.
I think most serious proposals still include copays.
Not really, because of the insurance factor. If people actually were paying for their healthcare, then your point would be relevant. However, no one pays for their own healthcare unless they are rich, everyone else (if they are lucky) has insurance and they pay a premium and maybe a small co-pay.
The rest either don't go or go bankrupt. Which is really kind of not true, because 75% of the people who go bankrupt from medical bills have insurance, it just isn't as good as they thought.
Yeah, the system is fucked. I'm not sure unfucking this part of it will make wait times decrease for people who can actually go, but I'd be willing to make that sacrifice for the people who never get to go.
Hypochondriacs are a small minority.
I can just call my doctor and walk in like a few days later. Most people in the major cities can. And you know what, people STILL hate going to the doctor. They don't do it unless they absolutely have to most of the time. That's just the way people are. Making it "free" for them to do so just means when something ACTUALLY comes up, they'll be in that doctors office 99% of the time.
No it's not, because it's a separate (though related) issue. There are two things here:
- How many people have health care?
- How good is the health care for those who do?
They are interrelated, and it's foolish to ignore one or the other, but you're trying to meld them together to score cheap points. Saying "lol infinite wait time" doesn't say anything intelligent about the actual quality of the service provided. It says something about the availability of the service.
If we weren't already discussing the issue of availability, your point would be a cute one. As it is, it's just mucking up the discourse.
Everyone is required to get insurance. Almost every employer is required to provide health insurance. People that cannot afford health insurance get state aid.
The only problem is that insurance companies are still making too much money.
*shrug* That's quite likely. It's just you can't tell someone that they weren't having chest pains once they get discharged, even if the doctors didn't find anything. Triage nurses look for certain answers when you complain of chest pain and if you answer the questions right, you get a bed.
I have nothing to back this up, though, just my dad's experiences, so I guess I'll leave it at that.
Eh, very few people are true hypochondriacs, and I think the effort of having to book an appointment and go in at a particular time is still off-putting to a lot of people regardless of cost - I know it is to me!
Plus you often have to be persistent to get a doctor to do much for a non-obvious, non-urgent complaint. It's not as if you can go around demanding free scans/x-rays/hospital stays! I think the worst that would happen is that it becomes a little harder to get GP appointments.
I have heard that the US does more procedures than may be strictly necessary, as a precaution. For example, my ex fell ill with glandular fever (mono) when visiting the US. He was rushed to hospital, they ran tests, and put him on an IV drip. When he returned home to the UK, his GP took a look at him and said, 'I'd have just sent you home and told your mother to tuck you up in bed and feed you lots of broth'.
I mean, if one person were getting awesome healthcare, immediately, average wait time is basically zero, but that doesn't really say anything about the quality of healthcare if the rest of the country doesn't get any.
Also remember, that just because you have insurance doesn't mean that A) it's enough or
If your job doesn't offer it, Blue Cross Blue Shield will insure you for somewhere near 100 bucks a month. That's what it was last time I had them anyways.
Right now through work there's like four things I pay for including dental, its under a hundred dollars, but still if I had a kid I couldn't afford that.