Ask Lemmy

Costa Rica : You can have an appointment the same or the next day, and appointmens can be requestet online, by phone or getting to the nearest medical medical center. Costa Rica's social security covers everything, from medication to surgery and you are covered for the next theree months if you lose your job. There are few surgeried that are not practiced in the country as some may need technology that we do not have. The cons of Costa Ricas social health's service is that for some processes the waiting lines are very long and could take even a year or more. Might not be as good as european social health's services, but for a third world country I think is not any bad.

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.

Brazil.

If I'm at home and simply unwell, I can walk to the neighborhood clinic (one specific clinic based on my address) and get checked - that usually takes half an hour to a couple hours, but it may not always have a doctor available.

So most people skip the local clinic completely and go to a municipal hospital instead (something doctors often plead people not to do). These should always have a couple doctors available and they'll see anybody - even if you have no documents. When you get there a nurse will check your pulse and stuff and ask some questions to determine your priority level, then the waiting time can go up to 4 hours if it's low priority.

If you need specific exams, that will depend on how well equipped the hospital is. Many will do it right there, some will request it from other cities and that may take time, so there's the option of doing it in private clinics too.

No matter what you may end up needing, if you do it through the public health system you won't need to pay anything at all. Even experimental treatments and surgeries can get arranged. But there's always the option of going to private clinics as well. Those can have much shorter waiting times.

Based on my limited experience, this is what people seem to do for each kind of visit:

Emergencies: pretty much everybody go to public hospitals. Most places don't even have private options for this.

Basic check up: most people will use the public system first, unless it's something very specific and they are well financially.

Dental care: most people who won't be financially crippled by it will go private. People tend to stick with the same dentist once they find a good one. On the public system you never know who you might be seeing.

Eye doctor: 50/50. There are nearly as many private options for this as there are for dental care, but a lot of them suck.

Expensive exams and operations: people will try to get them for free at first, or through some Health insurance plan they may have from work. Everybody knows someone who's been waiting months for something on the public system.

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,rural area.

I call my GP. It might take a few tries to get through. Tell the receptionist what I've got, she is more or less trying to triage me. When it's urgent enough and I am calling early enough I can usually get there on the same day but have to wait longer at the office,if it's less serious it's mostly one or two days,but with less waiting time at the office. To check in you hand them your insurance card. Medication is prescribed electronically, so you just hand the card (or do it online) at the pharmacy. The GP visit is free, medication has a small, limited copay. You get fully paid for 6 weeks of sickness per diagnosis by your employer, reduced pay for up to 2 years by the health insurance.

If it's an illness requiring a specialist I can also try to book an appointment for that directly - but while that works well in larger cities it is totally impossible here, you simply won't get an appointment, not even in a year. The same happens when your GP refers you to a specialist,but there are mechanisms to give you a more urgent appointment - which works sometimes,sometimes they don't.

From south Brazil.

For something not urgent I can usually get a private GP within a week or a specialist within a month.

For something a bit more urgent, usually 1-2 hours in a private hospital, or 2-6 hours in a public one.

When going private the health insurance has always covered everything, so no cost.
Never had an emergency so I can't say how it is.

Like going to a post office.

You walk in, show your health ID, get treated, then leave.

Edit: Assuming you're going to a hospital. Family doctor care is similar, although in my province they're contractors, and it can be hard to find one with an opening for new patients right now.

Oh, I just noticed it wait time was requested. It varies for family doctors; the local one that sucks can pretty much always get you in immediately. I'm with one that needs a couple days notice now, haha.

If you get referred to a specialist it's a long wait, like many months, and when you do go it's a human production line coordinated down to the second.

I've lived in multiple places, so I'll talk about all of them.

Brazil

I lived in two places there, essentially you can choose between public or private systems.

Under the private system you would book an appointment with whatever doctor you wanted, usually one or two weeks in advance, pay them (which is relatively expensive depending on the doctor), have the consultation, they might ask for some exams (some of which are paid, others included), possibly get a prescription (that you would have to pay for yourself), possibly go back for a follow up appointment (included in the price you already paid).

On the public system you book an appointment, wait some time (months in some places, days in others), have your consultation (if the doctor is in that day), possibly get a prescription (that you would likely get for free), possibly go back for a follow up appointment.

Ireland

There's a public system, but you have to be below a certain income level to use it, otherwise you have to go through the private system. You have to register with your GP (most of which don't have available spots), for anything you first need to contact your GP (which usually takes a week), and pay €60, explain your problem and if they choose to forward you to and specialist (even if you go and say I need to see a cardiologist they might say "no, you do not", although that's unlikely), then they send an email to the specialist who only then accepts that you book with them (usually for a week or so later), then you have to pay the specialist (which is usually >€300), they might ask for some exams (which you have to book and pay on your own, some blood work I did was €700), they might give you a prescription (which is paid but there's a €80 cap on medicine per house per month, which is the only nice part of the whole system), and if you need a follow up it's usually €150. If you have health insurance (or at least mine was like this) they give you back 50% of all your expenses up to a certain limit.

Spain

I'm not too familiar with the options here because I have private insurance through my work and as you'll see I've had no reason to look elsewhere, but I've been told the public system is fairly similar. Whenever I need an appointment I open my insurance app or call a doctor office and ask if they take my insurance, book an appointment (usually for a week or two in advance), go there, show my id and insurance card, go to the appointment, if they ask for some exams I do them, if they give me a prescription I take it to a pharmacy and pay it out of pocket (this is the only part I know public system exists and is somewhat better because you get the drugs for free, but since I don't take any recurring prescriptions I haven't bothered to check), if I need a follow up I book it and go back. Never had to pay one cent for anything other than medicine. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop and getting billed for all of the Dr appointments, but so far it hasn't happened hahaha

Slovakia

Notify my employer that I won't show up, go to doctor and wait in the waiting room. When the nurse shows up, give her the insurance card and wait for your turn. They'll check you, and if it's nothing special (requiring a specialist), you'll probably get prescription for some meds to pick up.
Then you get those in a pharmacy. Either it's electronic, or if the system is once again broken, you hand them the Rx paper that the Dr. gives you in that case. And then you figure out what you're about to pay. A lot of things will be fully covered by insurance, but potentially you'll have to copay. There's also a chance the Dr. tells you to get something that isn't covered, like some specific eyedrops, cough meds, probiotics (if you have antibiotics for example), etc.

The pharmacist may recommend a cheaper alternative, will likely tell you recommended dosage, tell you that once again this specific Dr. prescribed something that hasn't been manufactured for the past 30 years, and in the rare case, tell you the prescription seems dangerous and to contact the Dr.
And also decrypt any handwriting/encoding.

Canadian here. My son just had an ear infection that was lasting 3 days. On the 3rd morning we called our doctors office to have it checked. They were able to squeeze us in at noon. Took him, and they couldn't tell if it was viral or bacterial, so suggested we wait and see if it clears. Didn't clear after another 2 days, but it was the weekend now. Called 811 and they contacted a medical center to make us an appointment in the morning. Next morning (Sunday now) office called us, made an appointment and saw him again. This time we got a prescription for some antibiotics.

I've taken a course about anti-microbial resistance and I understand that doctors are instructed not to go with antibiotics first thing so it didn't really bother me to go back a second time. It was nice they it was easy to be seen again even if it wasn't with the family doctor.

Australian here from Victoria. Going to the GP will cost me around $80 up front and I get around $50 back from Medicare later. This is for about a 30 minute consultation with a doctor. The wait time is rarely longer than 15 minutes but it really depends on the practice. I've waited 2+hours for a GP that was fully covered by Medicare.

Germany: If I'm sick and want an appointment asap I just go. They tell you to call in advance but if you do they give you an appointment for another day and if you just rock up they tell you to sit down and wait for the doc. Which can take anywhere between 5 minutes and 5 hours, at least that's about the range I've experienced. Oh and not sure if that's only a thing here but it's common to awkwardly greet the other patients when you get into the waiting area.

Seeing the doc would be similar to the US I guess, except there's no need to discuss money. Doctors shake hands here, maybe that's different from you but Idk. After the appointment you check in with the front desk again to fetch any prescriptions (although those are mostly digital since last year) and notes you may need for work. That's also the time to book a follow up appointment if you need one.

Cost depends on what you got. Getting extensive bloodwork or some less "necessary" exams for example aren't covered by insurance. There's a flat 5€ fee for prescription meds and 10€ per day in a clinic. If you don't have enough money you can let the insurance company know and they'll cover some of those fees too.

Ex had gallbladder issues that ran in the family.

One night she had bad abdominal pain. Drive over and rush her to hospital. Gets in 15 minutes. Nurses provide aid and pain relief, night shift ER doc looks her over, determines is likely gall bladder and it needs to be removed based on pain. Morning doctor looks her over, says it's not bad enough to warrant immediate attention, sends her home with painkillers, an appointment for an ultrasound and a 6 month-ish waitlist for removal.

--

Two nights later, same story, she opts for an ambulance this time. This time the same night shift doctor stays a bit late to ensure that she gets an ultrasound right away.

Gets sent home after the ultrasound and told that they will phone with next steps same day.

11am, go back to the hospital, get told that she is being admitted for immediate gallbladder removal. Ended up taking a day and a half to get to the surgery because of a bad motorcycle accident then two emergency c-sections tired out the only surgeon available and his staff over a straight 24 hour shift. 8 hours sleep and she was first up. Got it out, follow up at a nurse practitioner to get the drain removed.

Cost to us: $0

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.