You think our medical care system is good because we have short wait times? Think again.

From Business Week:

If you find a suspicious-looking mole and want to see a dermatologist, you can expect an average wait of 38 days in the U.S., and up to 73 days if you live in Boston, according to researchers at the University of California at San Francisco who studied the matter. Got a knee injury? A 2004 survey by medical recruitment firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates found the average time needed to see an orthopedic surgeon ranges from 8 days in Atlanta to 43 days in Los Angeles. Nationwide, the average is 17 days. "Waiting is definitely a problem in the U.S., especially for basic care," says Karen Davis, president of the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, which studies health-care policy.

All this time spent "queuing," as other nations call it, stems from too much demand and too little supply. Only one-third of U.S. doctors are general practitioners, compared with half in most European countries. On top of that, only 40% of U.S. doctors have arrangements for after-hours care, vs. 75% in the rest of the industrialized world. Consequently, some 26% of U.S. adults in one survey went to an emergency room in the past two years because they couldn't get in to see their regular doctor, a significantly higher rate than in other countries.

There is no systemized collection of data on wait times in the U.S. That makes it difficult to draw comparisons with countries that have national health systems, where wait times are not only tracked but made public. However, a 2005 survey by the Commonwealth Fund of sick adults in six nations found that only 47% of U.S. patients could get a same- or next-day appointment for a medical problem, worse than every other country except Canada.

...The Commonwealth study did find one area where the U.S. was first by a wide margin: 51% of sick Americans surveyed did not visit a doctor, get a needed test, or fill a prescription within the past two years because of cost. No other country came close.

My own case is anecdotal and non-life-threatening, but annoying none-the-less. A typical wait time for a physical examination with my internist is two and a half to three months. If I need immediate care, he holds office hours (sometimes) for a half day on Tuesdays and Fridays. The other days, he's at a different office, and patients who see him in one office can't visit the other. So, if I get sick on any other day, I have to go to the emergency room or suffer through it until a Tuesday or Friday.

Then, there's a whole other type of wait time. That's the wait in the waiting room once you already have an appointment. That wait is typically one to two hours at my urologist and three to four at my cardiologist.

Several years ago I popped an Achilles tendon while on vacation. The doctor in the local emergency room told me that I should have surgery within a week if I wanted the thing to get fixed right. We drove home that night and called an orthopedist recommended by a friend the next day. He wasn't available for even an appointment for six weeks. I did finally find someone who did the surgery within the week, but just barely.