Secret #7 Your PCP may be forced to carry a panel size as enormous as 2700 patients, or more.
From 11 Secrets of the Healthcare System Exposed
I’ll help you with the math to see why it takes so long to get an appointment.
Let’s say, conservatively, just 5% (135 patients) of Dr. X’s panel need to be seen at any given week. Dr. X only has 99 appointment slots per week. (Seriously, what other profession has 99 meetings a week?) But those appointments are also open to any other doctor’s patients in the office who need to be seen asap, so maybe Dr. X’s availability to their own patients is really 80 slots, or less.
Snowball this, week after week, and voila - 3 month wait times.
Just humor me and ask your doctor how many patients they carry. There are just simply never enough doctors to meet demand. This also ties in with not having enough residency slots for all the graduating doctors every year, a whole separate issue. Maybe someone else can explain why that is?