Americans, how soon can you get a doctors appointment?

American living in London here - the NHS is TERRIBLE. In the US I could get an appointment same day for literally any problem. No issue. I could also choose the time of the appointment and they would call you in ON TIME.

That said - in the U.S. if you’re poor and your kid gets cancer they probably die.

So I’ll still take the NHS.

I can't speak for all of the US, because it really does vary by region in terms of access to healthcare and healthcare providers, but I live in a major city and we have very easy access.
Pediatricians have same day/urgent appointments. And if you can't see your pediatrician, we have urgent cares that are usually open later than your pcp's office.
We do have issues sometimes with specialists and waiting a long time, but not usually sick visits.

I think you have to bear in mind that the UK health care system is a bit of a postcode lottery. Where I am I have no complaints at all, twice I have filled in an online doctors form in the morning for my daughter and she has got an appointment to see the GP that day. For me I get an appointment within the next week no problem, they then got me an appointment for blood tests a few days later and I got the results the next day. Can’t complain at that.

We have the ER for these things, but babies & very young are generally seen sooner, if I called my GP right now, oh wait, I forgot, another one quit & didn’t tell me, so instead of waiting a month or two for that appointment, I have to hunt down a new GP within my coverage & start all over. Unfortunately I, nor my 16y, can go to the walk in clinic bc it’s now been over a year since we’ve seen a GP, so if we get a sinus infection that needs antibiotics we have to go to the emergency room, but personally, I just went down to my local feed store & bought some for fish to take myself, bc the last thing I need to worry about paying is a few thousand dollars just to see a doctor to get antibiotics for my chronic sinus condition.

100% agree that it’s a postcode lottery - we’ve always been able to get a same day appointment, even when we got put on a waiting list for my daughter to have a surgery she wasn’t waiting that long at all either.

Our pediatricians office typically can get us in day of or next day, when there’s a longer wait than what we need we have the option of urgent care facilities.

Also our pediatricians office has a nurses line for new moms to call at any hours of the day.

It is weird because as a Canadian I find the healthcare here is much better in the UK then it was in Canada. In Canada you aren’t allowed to see your test results for things like bloods or urine. You are actually not allowed to see any of your medical records unless you pay a fee to have them copied on paper or on a CD (I got charged $80 or $90). You also cannot get a same day appointment at all, you will be told to go to a walk in clinic which would be a 1-3 hour wait.

I live in a city and...there are offices in quite a few places. If i cant get a same day appt with my doctor I can get seen same day by another doctor, same with my child. But my wife has a different insurance through her work and she cant get same day. She can get her foot the following week or sometimes later in the week!

We don’t. We go to urgent care. There’s no same day appointments with PCPs here and fun fact. In my area only PCPs will do Pap smears because the OB/GYNs don’t do them here anymore.

It depends! I had an infection that was absolutely killing me and my doc saw me same day and wrote me a script.
Now if I had a fever and general unwellness, they would have had to wait.

In the UK and have always been able to get a same day appointment when required so agree with the other commenters, it depends a lot on where you live.

I’m in the UK, have never had an issue getting a same day appointment if we really need it, and have used NHS 111 out of hours GPs before and they were really great. it’s a shame it’s not a universal experience everywhere as I know others don’t have the same experience! Prime example the other week when I developed a middle ear infection with sudden awful pain at about 5:30pm, I called NHS 111 and had seen a GP and was given antibiotics by 8pm! Really grateful for their help when we truly need it.

I gave up on the NHS years ago when the kids were born, paying for private health insurance now which thankfully comes with same day private GPs. So I’m paying for both NHS care and private 🫠

My son had an issue last week and we got an appointment 90 mins later and a prescription to take straight to the pharmacy.

My NHS GP did my 3 year olds jab and said her jab record didn’t even match the computer record as they didn’t log it! My mum is a 43 year NHS nurse and pays private now if she needs it. It’s broken from the top down and luck of the draw.

I'm so curious to know how many commenters here consider themselves socialist lol

It really depends. I put next day/same week because that is most likely. If it is really severe they will ask you to go to the Emergency Room at the hospital. If it is not urgent but you need to get in they may be able to get you same day but should definitely get you in within the next couple days. I've heard a lot about how terrible the health system is so I'm not surprised honestly. There are really bad things about our healthcare system, don't get me wrong, but at least no one is dying because they just couldn't get an appointment...

Same day for sick appointments most of the time at my son’s pediatrician. Next day at my primary care physician most of the time, same day if I’m lucky.

My Dr opens up next day appointments the evening before for this reason otherwise it's a couple days to a week. I can always go to urgent care which is a small deductible with our insurance plan vs a free Dr visit, but I can go in whenever I need. Honestly the healthcare where I live now is great compared to when I lived further south where it took months to get in and hours after your time even if you made an appointment because they had no system to stop walk ins or limit it so it pushed everyone back.

I can literally ring my NHS doctors at 8am for an emergency appointment and usually get one, and if there’s an issue they send me to another local practice same day or next day.

If I’m going for something not an emergency approx 2 weeks. But realistically, 2 weeks isn’t bad for something that again is not an emergency.

I think it depends where you are. Where I live in the UK I could get a same day appointment. Yes the process is silly call up at 8am and stay on hold for however long but I could still get an appointment. If you're saying thats what you do and the appointment is 2 weeks later that's ridiculous, especially for a baby or child x

My regular GP it can be that day or about a week wait.my specialsts though, my neurologist has about a 9 month to a year wait. I need a brain scan that will have to wait until about a year and a half