Feature
Wait times for family physician visits up almost 10 days since 2014
Survey in 15 large cities shows new patients now waiting 29.3 days for an appointment with a family physician.
Medicaid acceptance was 55% among family physicians in the 2017 edition of an ongoing survey conducted in 15 large cities by physician recruitment firm Merritt Hawkins.
That was up from almost 52% in the previous survey, conducted in 2014, but lower than the average of 64% for FPs in 15 midsized cities that were included for the first time in 2017, the company reported.
There was one large city with a Medicaid acceptance rate of 100% – Minneapolis (up from 35% in 2014) – along with three midsized cities – Billings, Mt.; Dayton, Ohio; and Fargo, N.D. The lowest rate among the large cities was in Denver (20%), with the midsized basement occupied by Lafayette, La., at 20%, Merritt Hawkins reported.
Investigators called 273 randomly selected family physicians in the large cities and 115 FPs in the midsized cities in January and February. It was the fourth such survey the company has conducted since 2004.
The survey included four other specialties – cardiology, dermatology, ob.gyn., and orthopedic surgery. The Medicaid acceptance rate for all 1,414 physicians in all five specialties in the 15 large cities was 53%, and the average rate for all specialties in the midsized cities was 60% for the 494 offices surveyed, the company noted.
Cardiology had the highest rates by specialty and dermatology the lowest in both the large and midsized cities. For all five specialties combined, Minneapolis (97%) and Fargo (100%) had the highest acceptance rates, with the lowest rates coming from Dallas (17%) for large cities and Lafayette (11%) for midsized cities, the Merritt Hawkins data show.