Starting this fall, NYC Health + Hospitals plans to cut primary care visit times from 40 minutes to 20 minutes. The change will address growing demands for care at the nation's largest public health system, according to internal documents obtained by Gothamist and Politico.
During an internal presentation to staff, officials said halving visit times will allow new patients to access care faster. Over the past year, the average wait time for primary care appointments increased from 11 days to 22 days for adults, according to a report from New York City's mayoral office. For children, the wait time grew 40% from 15 days in the first four months of 2023 to 21 days over the same period this year. The increases are based on the third next available appointment time, a commonly used metric to gauge healthcare accessibility.
NYC Health + Hospitals has added nearly 50,000 primary care patients since 2021, which has pushed up wait times, a spokesperson for the health system told news outlets.
"As more New Yorkers want to seek care in our system, it is our mission to make primary care available for them, with our cornerstone being that we treat healthcare as a human right for every New Yorker," a spokesperson said, adding that the health system is bringing on more physicians assistants and other staff to its care teams to allow physicians to spend as much time with patients as possible.
"Under this new plan, doctors will spend more time with patients and less time doing things like prior authorization — which is a key contributor to doctor burnout," the health system said in a statement.
Some physicians have criticized the directive, saying it's too rigid and doesn't account for the complexity of patients' medical needs.
"Part of what makes the 20-minute patient visit an issue is that it's a blunt policy that's [being implemented] across the board," Andrew Goldstein, MD, a primary care physician at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, told the Gothamist.
Becker's has reached out to NYC Health + Hospitals and will update the report as more information becomes available.