Barriers to Care
I was speaking with a friend last week who is trying to set up an appointment to see a psychiatrist. As I work at HealthGrades (who specialized in comprehensive physician profiles/databases), she asked if I could help her find someone to see. We looked through the HealthGrades profiles, found some physicians who looked promising - but got stuck on the contact information section. As it turns out, every doctor we looked up only listed a phone number and address. We assumed this must be a limitation of my company’s database, so we started googling. About an hour later, we concluded that no physician we researched had a website or public email address.
Why, you may ask, would we be looking for a website or an email address? Think about it - if you are someone who has finally decided to try to reach out for care - do you want to have to call and explain your situation in detail during the hours of 8a - 5p? Most of us are at work from 8-5, which means a potential patient would have to call from work. In this scenario, the potential patient gets double the embarrassment - 1. having to talk to a receptionist about a deeply personal problem and 2. having your co-workers listen in.
I feel this is an extraordinary barrier to care. What can be done? We know there is a demand, real-time appointment books exist, plenty of companies have web building services, but why hasn’t the medical field caught up?
