The demand for top-quality specialty care in the healthcare industry is on the rise, yet so are the wait times to access these services.
The current top specialties are:
- Radiology
- Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Psychiatry
- Gastroenterology
Long Wait Times for Healthcare Specialties Decrease Access
What is delaying specialty care for patients?
In order to understand the different reasons that patients struggle to access care, it is essential to look at what contributes to the issue. There are many reasons that patients do not access specialty care. Social determinants of health (SDOH) like the travel distance required to access specialty care in rural areas, cost, disability, and many more. However, the issue that impacts patients nationwide is the long wait times for healthcare that limit appointments with specialists.
Patients are frequently told that specialists aren’t able to see them for several weeks or even months from when the patient receives a referral and attempts to make an appointment. This creates a backlog of patients who often don’t get seen by a specialist because the patient seeks care in another location, like the ED, or decides that the appointment isn’t necessary. So much time between the date the appointment is scheduled and the date of the appointment leads to forgotten and missed appointments and scheduling conflicts.