This morning, I called my primary care physician’s office to make an appointment
about my migraine headaches. I described the symptoms I was experiencing: excruciating pain, nausea, vomiting, and splotchy vision. I get 2-3 headaches of this severity monthly.
However, I was met with the typical answer that I’d have to wait a few months to see my physician, and if I wanted to see a different one, I’d have to wait even longer for a “new patient” appointment.
We settled on a May 4 appointment and agreement that she’d call with any cancellations, which doesn’t meet the needs I’m currently facing very well at all.
Wait times for healthcare in the U.S. are getting worse by the year, and if we aren’t already, we’ll see the effects soon.
According to a May 2025 survey by HealthLeaders Media, OB/GYN wait times have risen the most, going up 33% since 2022 and 79% since 2004. Family medicine wait times have gone up 14% since 2022 and 16% since 2009.
Is this because there are more people getting sick, or because there aren’t enough
doctors? The simple answer is both, but mostly, there just aren’t enough doctors to take care of the amount of people living in the U.S.
In 2023, the U.S. Physician Workforce Data Dashboard said there were around
85 direct patient primary care physicians serving every 100,000 people in the U.S.
There were 840,259 total direct patient primary care providers.
This is outrageous, considering the average American visits the doctor at least twice per year, according to the Commonwealth Fund. If each of the 353 million people went to the doctor twice, that’s 706 million visits — not even considering surgeries. How could 840,000 doctors possibly keep up with it?
They can’t. They’re overworked and understaffed, so we have to wait months just to be seen, as long as we don’t end up in urgent care or the ER first.
This shortage over time isn’t a coincidence, though. Fewer medical school students are going into family medicine because it makes significantly less money than other specialties, and they need all of the help they can get to offset the average $200,000 student loan debt they accrue by the end of medical school.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that family physicians grossed $256,830 in 2024. This seems like a lot of money at first, but when you compare it with the student debt they likely have and the salaries of their counterparts in cardiology, radiology, and surgery, which are upwards of $400,000, it doesn’t measure up.
So clearly, this isn’t just a healthcare problem, it’s a cost of education problem, too. I, personally, am going into elementary education and have found multiple scholarships and grants just for teachers that have made my tuition almost free as long as I maintain a certain GPA.
Why aren’t there more programs like this for doctors intending to take care of the public? It’s certainly an important enough job!
It’s assumed a lot of the time that doctors won’t need help with student loans since they’ll make so much later on, but that proportion is clearly off since they’re actively choosing not to go into family care for salary reasons.
While this is understandable on the medical student’s end, it leaves people who need healthcare without a place to receive it. People are turning to emergency rooms and urgent care to treat conditions that a primary care provider usually would, which isn’t what those services are supposed to be for.
Becker’s Hospital Review says that the average wait time in Michigan ERs is 2 hours and 23 minutes. The emergency room is supposed to be for lifesaving care that can’t be waited on, but it’s turned into a primary care office, too.
Something to consider, as well, is the cost. Emergency and urgent care visits cost exponentially more than normal visits, so since patients have to wait so long for their primary visits, they’re forced to visit a more expensive doctor and wait hours for it, which just feeds the cycle.
Something has to be done about both the price of healthcare and the price of education soon if we want to continue to be cared for and get medications when we’re at our worst.
We should be speaking up about what we view as important. Just raising awareness on social media about these issues or pushing a friend in medical school to go into family care could go a long way.
Self-advocacy is also extremely important; remember, it’s okay to shop around before you pick which doctor is right for you and to call multiple times to advocate for sooner appointments if needed. Getting sick shouldn’t mean you have to wait weeks to get help.
