Sponsor
The patient survey was funded by the Carol Lavin Bernick Faculty Grant at Tulane University. The physician field experiment was funded by the National Institutes of Health (1R15MD010224–01) and Portland State University (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Faculty Enhancement Committee, Institute for Sustainable Solutions and Office of Research and Strategic Partnerships).
Published In
Preventive Medicine
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-27-2026
Subjects
Expectations, Access, Primary care Appointments -- Wait times, Discrimination, Physician shortages
Abstract
Objective: While patients expect timely appointments, little is known about how accurately patient expectations reflect the realities of access to a primary care physician. Methods: We deployed a national survey (N = 6119, conducted in 2021) to measure patient expectations and a separate national field experiment (N = 11,016, conducted between 2013 and 2016) where trained research assistants called physician offices seeking an appointment to measure physician availability. Results: Using multivariate regression analyses, we find that patients expected to call 1.9 physicians to secure an appointment, consistent with an appointment offer rate of 49%. However, expectations of 5.4 days wait to an appointment were below the 28.5 wait days offered. Male respondents expected to wait 1.9 days longer and were offered appointments 2.0 days later. However, despite not expecting fewer appointments, Black and Hispanic patients were 2 percentage points and 3 percentage points less likely to be offered appointments, respectively.
Conclusions: Respondents on average were able to accurately characterize overall primary care appointment access, but were unable to accurately describe how long one has to wait until being seen by a physician. Discrepancies between expectations and access in primary care may lead to low patient satisfaction, overuse of emergency rooms, or abandoned attempts to obtain care.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2026 The Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
DOI
10.1016/j.ypmed.2026.108585
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44683
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation Details
Walker, B., Tsai, E., Shimanovsky, A., Doherty, E., Tinkler, S., & Sharma, R. (2026). Expectations and realities in primary care appointment access in the United States: A national study. Preventive Medicine, 208, 108585.