Why it takes forever to get a doctor's appointment

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Why it takes forever to get a doctor's appointment By Angela Haupt Editor, Health and Wellness Last week, my mom suffered a serious neurological incident and was rushed to the hospital. She's since been discharged, and spent the past 24 hours making calls to schedule follow-up appointments. We were wildly frustrated to learn that it would take weeks or months to get in with all the specialists she needs to see. In a new piece for TIME, primary care physician Dr. Ilana Yurkiewicz explains why it takes forever to schedule doctor's appointments. She has 1,300 patients, and after she's done with appointments at 5 p.m., she sorts through 50 to 100 messages. Then she takes three to four hours of work home with her every night. "Doctors are working harder and longer, all while patients can access us less," she writes. Part of the problem has to do with electronic medical records. Doctors spend two hours doing computer tasks for every one hour facing patients, Yurkiewicz points out. Ordering something as simple as Tylenol requires clicking on a computer screen 14 to 62 times. And when patients can't get face-to-face time, they turn to messaging, deluging doctors with even more electronic work. It's a perfect storm—and fixing this crisis, Yurkiewicz  says, will involve profoundly rethinking how we allocate the resources we already have. READ MORE Share This Story

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ONE LAST READ Keeping drug users alive, one call at a time After Jessica Blanchard’s daughter began using drugs, her priority eventually shifted from convincing her to quit to keeping her alive. That mental shift led Blanchard, a trained nurse, to join Never Use Alone, a unique harm-reduction hotline through which volunteers talk to people as they use drugs, always prepared to call emergency services if they overdose. Read More »

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