Americans are suffering from health care “shrinkflation,” including longer wait times and shorter doctor visits, even as they pay more for care, Axios reported on Tuesday.
“The United States spends more on health care than almost any other country, yet patients are getting less and less in return and enduring longer wait times with less face-to-face time with their doctors.” The report states:.
“Shrinkflation has hit nearly a fifth of the economy, straining doctor-patient relationships and forcing many to turn to urgent care clinics and telehealth services,” it continued.
The report states: Axios/Ipsos survey conducted in August Nearly one in five people reported waiting more than two months to see a doctor, according to the survey.
Additional research by electronic medical records company Tebra found that 43% of patients felt their wait times had gotten longer since the pandemic began.
Hospitals such as NYC Health and Hospitals are also telling primary care doctors to shorten appointments to 20 minutes to accommodate more patients.
At NYC Health and Hospitals, the average wait time for the “third-most available” primary care appointment nearly doubled from 12 to 22 days.
Robert Pearl, a Stanford University professor and former CEO of Permanente Medical Group, told Axios that these findings are due to increased patient demand since the pandemic, red tape surrounding health insurance, rising costs and doctors choosing to leave the field.
“You're actually paying more for health insurance and not getting more. In fact, you're getting less,” Pearl said.
The report concluded that the problem is likely to get worse over time, with Pearl describing it as “a vicious cycle of rising demand and under-served care each year, which then leads to an ever-increasing demand, and more rapidly so.”
