Shallow NYT coverage of waiting time to see a doctor

Thanks to SimulConsult CEO Michael Segal for sending me his analysis of a recent New York Times article on waiting times in physician offices (Sick and Scared, and Waiting, Waiting, Waiting).From the article:

Change cannot come too soon for irate patients like Howard Levine of Boca Raton, Fla., who endured a two-hour wait before storming out of a vascular surgeon's office.

"I was in the restaurant business for 20 years, and if I made you wait in a restaurant for two hours, you would be pretty upset," Mr. Levine said. "We're not coming there for social visits. We're coming because something is wrong."

From Michael:

There is lots of room for improvement on waiting times for doctors, but silly analogies like this are as self-deceiving and distracting as comparing electronic health records to cash machines. People care whether they see a particular doctor. If they didn't it would make perfect sense to run a medical practice like a restaurant.

One way to improve the situation is to make it easier to charge patients for missed appointments. A major reason for overbooking is holes in the schedule from no-shows. One could pair this with offering free visits to patients who would agree to be bumped, but if something goes wrong in the meantime the doctor bears a huge malpractice risk that airlines don't have to figure in.

The article does not mention another problem that doctors wrestle with: how to reduce delays in getting an outpatient visit appointment.

Overall it is a shallow article that overlooks the complexities of an issue where progress can be made, but not by shallow thinkers.