Access For Healthcare : A Patient Making An Appointment

When focusing on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Systems strategies for improvement with unnecessary emergency room visits, a major key area is accessibility to health care at the appropriate health care setting. For many years, there has been the perception that the emergency department is the only place for someone who is uninsured or underinsured can go to receive the needed and appropriate health care, and in some situations that may be the case. (Rhodes et al, 2013, p.394) Due to the decreases in reimbursements for the publicly funded, more and more physicians are opting out to treating these patients, thus leading to an increase in emergency department utilization. According to a study conducted by Rhodes, Bisgaier, Lawson, Soglen, Krug, and Haitsma, this is becoming a greater concern for the

The implications and effects on patients waiting long hours to be seen in the ED are immense. In a recent study done over five years in Ontario hospitals showed the risk of adverse events and even deaths increased with the length of stay in the ED (Science Daily, 2011). When EDs become overcrowded the quality of care changes and declines; which is extremely dangerous. Authors of the study calculated that if ED length of stay was cut by only an hour that 150 fewer Ontarians would die each year (Science Daily, 2011). Wait times can also negatively affect patients financially, untreated medical conditions can lead to reduced productivity and inability to work leading to increased financial strains (Fraser Institute, 2014). As well as delayed access to care can result in more complex interventions needed. Therefore an initiative is needed to provide patients with timely, efficient care when accessing

There are many factors to why appointments are delayed or re-scheduled that are beyond the structuring of time, however, there are some ideas that can help ease the annoyance of having to wait. The best thing to address is making sure the patient feels comfortable. Keep people abreast of the wait time and what’s going on. People understand things happen. However, they don’t want to feel forgotten. Some doctor’s offices have grasped the ideas of distraction, provide TV with news and valuable information, brochures and literature read, even hiring nurses or

A major scandal arose out of Phoenix, Arizona in 2014 that led to many investigations finding that as many as forty patients died while waiting for care at a local VA hospital. (O’Donnel) And since then, there have not been many signs of improvement, In Arizona as well as the rest of the United States United States, on the wait time scandal. Despite billions of dollars and many calls of reform, investigations still show that that some VA facilities still struggle with bettering the wait times for their patients, leading to more death and late diagnoses. Reports conclude that there are over 500,000 cases of extended wait times, including delays longer than 30 days and being put on a waiting list just for an available appointment.

Data released in October 2014 indicated an average wait time of approximately 50 days for new primary care appointments, with a range of 2 to 122 days across all VA/VHA facilities (VA, 2014c). The OIG found that VHA was not meeting the outline standards, forcing some veterans to wait as many as 60 days for an initial evaluation. This caused a great setback in meeting the measurements set forth by OIG and caused a hindrance on veterans who have returned home from war and dealing with physical and mental health aliments and disabilities. The research study will be conducted to examine the circumstances preventing veterans from receiving new patient appointments in a timely matter. Since 2012, this researcher has witnessed the VA make great efforts to implement recommendations from OIG, however, the shortage of (1) healthcare provider availability, staffing, and (2) scheduling practices with out-of-date technology continues to cause delay in effective

Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has increased the number of insured, the problem of access to primary care still remains an issue due to the large pool of individuals who are now receiving coverage. Nonetheless, even if the current health care reform debate increases insurance coverage, residents in areas with inadequate physician supply will still have greater difficulty receiving timely and appropriate clinical care (Walker et al. 2010). Over the last decade the healthcare system has continues with relatively the same level of access to care for most Americans, and although there is an upwards of 84% of Americans have some form of insurance, the rising cost of care, the large group of uninsured and underinsured, and the lack of focus on

One reason some offices run continuously late is the doctor trys to see to many patients on a given day.Moreso, when this happens the payient dosen’t get the attention thay require from the physician.Running patient through

Canada’s health care system assures universality, portability, and accessibility; disappointingly, not all Canadians have access to specialists and facilities. Many patients face long wait times or do not have access to anesthetic and surgical care because the inadequate supply of anaesthesiologists for demand of Canada’s aging population. For instance, a woman experiencing severe pain in her right lower abdomen may endure excessive wait time to receive pain relief and life-saving care. However, surgical or other medical procedures can only be performed if patients have access to an anaesthesiologist. Despite government promises, and the billions of dollars funnelled into the Canadian healthcare system, the average wait time for surgeries in Ontario is approximately 14.3 weeks (Barua, Rovere & Skinner, 2011).

According to a report by CNN in 2016, 307,000 veterans may have died waiting for healthcare from the VA (Devine). Considering that this might not be an outstanding number, it is still a major issue, and presents one of the more prevalent concerns with the VA today. Wait times are one of the most common complaints with the organization, and according to The New American, “The VA has been caught having large-scale problems with unsanitary conditions (spreading diseases), poor care, long waits, corruption (including bribes and kickbacks), enormous waste, inefficiency, falsifying wait lists, denial of services, unnecessary surgeries, and more” (Williamsen). Additionally, one VA audit found that 10% of veterans attempting to obtain medical care at a VA or VHA institution were forced to wait at least 30 days to get an appointment (“The US Veteran Health Care System Is Overwhelmed and Failing”). With a larger budget, the VHA could hire more medical employees to care for their numerous patients, and build more facilities across the country, giving them more space and increasing their capability to aid all veterans who require their services.

Rosen says that in his field of pediatric rheumatology the ratio of patients to doctors is one of the aspects that contribute to long wait times. “In my field, pediatric rheumatology, there are little more than 300 doctors in the field in North America. Wait times for appointments can run up to four months” (Rosen, 2015). However, he and his fellow physicians, knowing that there is always room for improvement went on a mission to decrease patient wait time from one month to 72 hours. Using resources, techniques, and the unified goal of putting patient access as a top priority, Dr. Rosen and his team were able to set up a four year plan. In this plan, patients were being seen on first-come-first-served

Convenient access to care is a key factor in satisfaction. Patients with timely access to their primary doctors are less likely to seek costly care in the emergency department, and no show rates decrease when they do not have to wait days or weeks for an appointment.

Moreover, urgent care facilities accept walk-ins and offer extended office hours which plays a role in reducing waiting times. Unlike the quintessential doctor’s office, the physicians work around the patient's availability creating a level of convenience that patients have come to require. In the past, patients who could not reach their primary care provider or obtain an appointment in a timely manner would simply turn to the emergency room as an alternative. The urgent care center framework has been able to remedy the inconvenience of obtaining an appointment with a primary care physician while simultaneously preventing patients from visiting an emergency room for non-urgent matters. Therefore, urgent care facilities have replaced emergency

The list is not regulated first come first served and it is unsupervised. For instant Specialized treatment, surgery and other procedure that don’t fall on their county or a non-citizen will also be pushed back. You will find that unequal contribution of namely doctors, health care practitioners will make one wait till they come to that county. Lack of funds will make others wait too. in American life either being medical or seeing a specialist especially the once with Medicaid which is a government related insurance it takes 2-4 week waiting. Merritt Hawkins, a physician staffing firm “found long waits last year when it polled five types of doctors’ offices about several types of nonemergency appointments including heart checkups, visits for knee pain and routine gynecologic exams. The waits varied greatly by market and specialty. For example, patients waited an average of 29 days nationally to see a dermatologist for a skin exam, 66 days to have a physical in Boston and 32 days for a heart evaluation by a cardiologist in

As can be seen in Table 1 below, the resources causing the long wait times are those that are over utilized, or those that show capacity utilizations greater than 100 percent. The only over utilized resource are the Physicians, who are being over utilized by 21 percent. The other major resources are still underutilized.

Waiting time has been perceived as a way of measuring quality of service within a health care facility. Long wait times in the emergency room has been identified as the main cause for patients leaving the system before receiving any treatment and decreased patient satisfaction (Majid, Suradi & Sabri, 2013). Patient’s perspectives on hospital care are currently measured by national standardized survey instrument called the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS). The Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services uses HCAHPS as a tool to analyze hospitals quality performance (Bleustein et