Wait Times for Medicaid Patients Shows the Value of Primary Care Providers

Tens of millions of adults have enrolled in Medicaid since the health law passed, and that has caused concern over whether there would be enough primary care providers to meet the demand. Due to the lack of providers, most people enrolled in Medicaid often visit hospitals and the ER for visits that people should be visiting primary care providers for. Here are some stats illustrating that:

• Medicaid patients were 20 percent more likely than privately insured patients to wait 20 minutes or longer
• The median wait time for Medicaid patients was 4.6 minutes past their scheduled appointment time, compared to 4.1 minutes for the privately insured
• 18 percent of visits for Medicaid patients has a wait time of more than 20 minutes, compared to 16.3 percent for privately insured patients

The contrast between wait times for medicaid patients at hospitals is something that’s also seen at doctors offices. This can be a frustrating experience for medicaid enrollees.

To make it easier for medicaid enrollees to be seen, Doctors United not only accepts medicaid patients but tries its hardest to allow them to be seen within a reasonable amount of time. If you’re a medicaid patient that has found it frustrating being seen for your health issues and needs, then contact us to schedule an appointment today.