General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Canadians starting to demand the privatized USA Health Care system....... [View all]Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I had been diagnosed with arthritis, so even tho I didn't have RA symptoms, they wanted to make sure, since the dr I went to initially wasn't a specialist in that.
The RA dr specialized in that (rheumatologist or something). I made an appt & got in really quickly (next week? I don't recall). Got a thorough exam and blood test, and told to take naproxin for regular arthritis. Results mailed to me (I just had regular middle aged arthritis, no RA).
Followup was scheduled for 1 month for checkup.
In general, wait times in the US are less than with single payer, is what I've read. But there are locations in the U.S. where you'll be above average in wait time, for various reasons, and less than the average wait, time.
It took me quite a few phone calls to find a dr near my place of work and who could see me quickly and who would accept my insurance, but I found one. And there was only one.
So when you're talking specialists, your area may have a shortage of a certain kind of specialist, or something like that.
One of my neighbors has RA. He has no problems seeing his dr. quickly & getting the latest treatments, etc.
Anecdotes don't really make for sound statistics. Think about all the cars that are statistically shown to be unreliable over time, and yet, there is ALWAYS someone who will swear that he had one of those & it was the most reliable car he ever owned! He had it for 10 years and never had to do even one repair!