Ask Lemmy

Brazil:

Call an Uber, go to the hospital, grab a ticket, pass thru triage, called by name, show my id, triage decide which specialist to see, go to specialist waiting room and wait to be called by name.

Doctor examines me, ask for exams, maybe prescribe medication, do the exams, wait for result.

Back to doctor, prescribe medication, hospital provides medication (unless is something very uncommon, if so go to the pharmacy and buy it).

Call Uber, go home.

Total cost: Uber fare, usually about 6 dollars total.

Norway, I book online if it's not urgent and wait a few weeks. If it's urgent I call them and get it same day. Costs about ~250 NOK or ~20 USD I think. Public doctors are always at least 45 minutes late (unless you are late if course, then they call you on time)

I also had a non-urgent matter, but felt like wait time was too long (holiday season) so I went to a private clinic, got appointment same day and paid about 700 NOK I think.

I go there, tell my story, if they need to take some samples they can usually do them on site right away for no additional charge.

If I need some medicine they prescribe that and tell me to come back in x weeks if it's not getting better.

If they can't help me I get a referral. It could take a long time to get certain procedures, especially if they are not urgent/very important, but most of the time it's been a few weeks for my issues.

Brazil, urban area, with a health plan (private healthcare)

I go to the doctor, grab a little paper with a number on it, wait for the number to be displayed on the monitor, go to the reception desk, give them my health plan card and my ID, they give those back to me, I sit back down and wait for the same number to be displayed on a different monitor. Once it's displayed, I go to the room number shown on the monitor and from there, I discuss what problem I have with an adequate specialist.

For an unplanned visit, the wait time is usually 5–30 minutes, depending on the hour and season (there are a lot of tourists during summer, meaning longer wait times and more people at the hospital).

I don't know about pricing (my parents pay for it), but it's probably not too expensive since we've never had financial problems due to health issues (as far as I'm aware).

I've never not went to the doctor for financial reasons, only for health concerns (worrying about getting sick with something else, specially if the waiting room is full or almost full). Sometimes prescribed medicine can be pretty expensive.

UK. Phone local GP, no appointments available for ~3 weeks, maybe get a call back appointment in 2 weeks if I'm lucky. Alternative is to phone every morning between 0830-0900 and either not get through or be told there are still no appointments available.

I have found walk in pharmacists to be well educated (better than many GPs?!) and available without appointment so they're usually my first port of call.

The Netherlands

I call my doctor, make an appointment the same day, go there, tell my story, get referred to a specialist or get meds or whatever, all covered by insurance.

Specialist: sometimes appointment within a week or 2, sometimes it takes a month. It's covered by insurance, but there's an own risk budget each year of 380 euros. So all costs up to that budget are paid by yourself, the rest is covered. But since I'm getting mental health care, I pay 380 each januari and the rest for the entire year is all covered. This year I've had a broken collarbone repaired with a metal plate with all the photos before and after, I had 2 bladder infections which needed antibiotics and I had food poisoning on holiday and intestand infection, which was all covered at home and abroad.

Insurance

I pay 180 a month. It includes dental and some extras like 9 physical therapist appointments.

Canada. It's generally easy and free (no direct cost to me). I try to avoid having to go to my doctor whenever possible and I live with a nurse (and my doc knows that). Usually when I send him a message, either by email or by calling, he'll have a follow up question or two (sometimes none) then decide a course of action and move right to implementation. Sometimes that's sending a script to my local pharmacy, sometimes that's a referral to a specialist. Who knows? I haven't seen the guy in years. But if he made the request for me to go in, I would without hesitation.

I know my experience isn't the same as others, since my doctor and my spouse have actually worked together; but still. It's all free and there's usually minimal waiting.

The only significant delays I've heard of in Canadian healthcare relate to major procedures when the issue is non-critical. Like getting an MRI as a precaution, to make sure things aren't messed up or something (IDK what MRIs are used to diagnose, I am not a doctor).

Everything is triaged, so if you're not actively dying from a thing, and you need a big piece of equipment to scan you to figure something out, you're going to be waiting a while.

Portugal

If it doesn't require immediate attention I call my health center. I can get an appointment with my family pshysician in a few days or, if it's more urgent, some other doctor will see me the same day but I'll have to wait there until one is free (can go anywhere between 15mn and 2 hours). I'm lucky though, some health centers suck really bad. The ones in big cities are generally better.

If it's more urgent I call the national health line and they'll A: tell me how to treat it myself B: set up an appointment in my health center (or another if mine is not available) C: send me straight to the closest emergency room.

Wait times in the emergency room depend on the gravity and the hospital. My hospital sucks. Low priority you'll spend there the whole day, easy. 10+ hours. Medium priority you'll wait 4 or 5 hours. High priority about an hour, maybe two. Very high priority (head falling off) you go right in. In good hospitals those times are much lower. In the major city I used to live I never waited more than 2 hours for any priority. I also had surgery there and it was great.

Never paid a cent, I think it goes without saying.

Honestly depends.

If it's life or death urgent, an ambulance arrives, takes you away and with any luck, fix you right up. Visitors will likely have to pay to park at the hospital, and that will be your biggest expense. When my dad had a cardiac arrest, it was during covid, so the parking was free. The biggest expense was cleaning his blood off the carpets and putting their cat in the cattery for a week.

If it's something non-urgent, and the cause isn't immediately found by a doctor, then you might go on a waiting list and be seen in a few months maybe. And even then it might not get sorted. It's not like House.

The most annoying bit is the 8am phone roulette to try and get an appointment.

United Kingdom, Dorset.

My 3 year old daughter was vomiting and not keeping liquids down. Phoned the non-emergency line and after a bit of a wait, spoke to them and went through the script.

Was told to go to A&E and we would be expected. After a short wait there, was led down to the children's ward and she was given a bed in her own room. She was put on a drip, had antibiotics and kept in overnight. By the end of the following day she was able to keep down water and some toast so was discharged.

Had a follow on call from a GP the next day, she was back to normal in a couple of days.

Cost: £0 (I contribute to the NHS through general taxation)

Canada, I make an appointment with my family doctor, usually within a week, free. Specialists are more annoying because our right wing provincial government keeps chipping away at public healthcare and justifying it with its own results, but generally goes pretty quick too.

France, not a big city. If I'm sick. I call the doctor office, in another city because all doctors here have no places. I may book an appointment in two or three weeks. If I really need a doctor, I can book an appointment to "sos doctor", that I will pay for a part (and part healthcare), or go to a non-vital emergency doctor at night, which is expensive (for a doctor in France) but reimbursed by healthcare. I can have access to this because I'm still in/near a city.

The waiting time in a doctor office can be long, depending if they take time for their patients or not. I'm ok with that. If I have an appointment to my usual doctor, I don't pay or I only pay a little part which will be reimbursed minus 1€ (50/year max). There are doctors with exceding fees, like "sos doctor", those feeds are out of my pocket. Most of the time, we have healthcare AND private insurance, but there is a health insurance for poor people.

For medecine, most of the times we don't pay anything but there are fees, 1€/medecine box (50/year max, but not the same as the 50 for doctors).

i just go 😊

Germany:
I call the office
I schedule a time (and maybe a date if it's not urgent)
I go there
I get my treatment (advice), a prescription and if needed when to reschedule
I go to the apothecary and redeem my medication (usually without extra charges. But some arent subsidized 100% and you need to pay the remaining)
I get better again
I start working

Germany. When I am sick I call my doctor in the morning ask what time would be best to go there as to not wait too long. Then I go there, wait maybe an hour sometimes because he likes taking time for his patients, tell him my symptoms, get a sick note for work and possibly a prescription if I need medication.

I dont pay anything for the visit. If I need medication I will go to the pharmacy near my flat after the visit give them my health card, get my medication and depending on what drug I got pay a little bit, maybe 5€ , maybe a bit more.

Sweden.

A few alternatives:

• I could book an appointment at the local health center. I would probably get a time at the earliest next week, and it would cost me $30. Health center doctors are generally quite overworked, and can sometimes be a bit dismissive of your issues in my experience, but they will help you. If you need specialist care, they will give you a referral, which could take several months depending on the priority of the case and the type of specialist.
• I could use an app to get access to a video call with a doctor, after having described my symptoms in the app. I would get a video call the same day and it would cost me $30. Given the remote nature of this kind of contact, they can be a bit limited in what they can do for you, but will try to help you regardless. If your case requires in-person examination, they will ask you to go to a health center instead. If you need specialist care, they will give you a referral and you'll have to wait the same amount of time as for a referral in the health center scenario.
• I am lucky enough to have a private health insurance plan through my employer. If I have any problems, I'll submit them to this private health insurer, and they put a human on the case and connects me with a specialist right away if the problem warrants one. Typically this happens the same or the next day. This costs me nothing, apart from what I pay in benefit taxes to be on the private health insurance plan.

All in all, things work fairly well in Sweden, but having gotten private health insurance has definitely jaded me a bit on account of how much better the experience is when you have that. If only the public system wasn't systematically underfunded and run by the dumbest politicians on offer in the country, then maybe everyone could have great patient experience.