Patients Wait Too Long to Get a Specialist Appointment
When Your Patients Need Specialist Appointment, How Long do They Wait to be Seen?
Appointment wait times are getting longer. And, in-network referrals to specialists are more challenging than ever. AristaMD can help. Our eConsult solution can replace more than 70% of specialty care visits when the patient doesn’t require emergency care or procedures.
Check out recent wait times:
- Cardiology: Wichita Falls patients will wait an average of 44 days to see a Cardiologist.
- Dermatology: Do you need to refer a patient in Dallas or San Antonio? They will wait an average of 56 days to see a Dermatologist
- Gastroenterology: Patients are waiting 48 days on average for an appointment with a Gastroenterologist.
Request a Demo
Reduce Appointment Wait Times and Improve Patient Care
Long Wait Times for Healthcare Decrease Specialist Appointment 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 take a look at what contributing 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 the time that 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.