Hoping to see a doctor? Expect to wait a month, or longer

Many Americans are facing longer waits to see a physician.

Doctors are waiting a month, or longer, to get their appointment, according to a new survey by AMN Healthcare.

The average wait to schedule an appointment with a doctor is 31 days, according to a new survey by AMN Healthcare. The 2025 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times tracked the time to see a physician in America’s 15 largest metro areas.

Wait times have been getting longer in recent years. In 2022, Americans typically waited 26 days to see a doctor. In the first survey conducted in 2004, the wait was 21 days.

The time it takes to get an appointment varies by the type of doctor and the metropolitan area. In the new survey, those looking to see a family physician are faring a bit better than those seeing specialists, although the typical wait for a family doctor is still longer than three weeks (23.5 days).

But those trying to see an obstetrician or gynecologist are waiting six weeks on average (42 days). That’s up 33% since 2022 and 79% since 2004. Patients looking to see a gastroenterologist are typically waiting 40 days (the specialty is new to the survey this year).

Patients are waiting a little over a month (33 days) to see a cardiologist, an increase of 23% since 2022, and 74% since the first survey in 2004.

Leah Grant, president of AMN Healthcare's Physician Solutions division (formerly known as Merritt Hawkins), said the wait times are the longest since the survey began more than two decades ago.

“Longer physician appointment wait times are a significant indicator that the nation is experiencing a growing shortage of physicians,” Grant said in a statement accompanying the survey.

The 2025 survey examined wait times in large cities, and waits in some markets are especially long.

Boston earned the dubious distinction of the longest wait time to see a doctor, with patients typically waiting more than two months (67 days). In Atlanta, the typical wait time was 13 days, according to the survey.

Many Americans are likely waiting significantly longer to get to a doctor, particularly if they live in rural areas.

“It’s a sobering sign for the rest of the country when even patients in large cities must wait weeks to see a physician,” Grant said.

More Americans are getting care outside of clinics and physicians’ offices, Allison Oakes, executive director of research at Trilliant Health, told Chief Healthcare Executive® in an interview earlier this month. Some are opting for urgent care centers.

“People have very much shifted where they're getting some of their healthcare use to the urgent care setting,” Oakes says.

While some patients may be getting timely care and avoiding emergency care, they may also be losing out on building relationships with doctors to manage their care.

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest a shortage of providers. The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that the nation’s physician shortage could reach up to 86,000 by 2036.

The Milbank Memorial Fund and The Physicians Foundation released its third annual scorecard on primary care earlier this year, and found that more than 30% of U.S. adults don’t have a “usual source” of primary care, the highest level in a decade.

Ripley Hollister, MD, a board member of the Physicians Foundation, talked with Chief Healthcare Executive® in a March 2025 interview to talk about the need to invest more in primary care, so more doctors will choose it as a career. He also said the lack of primary care physicians causes patients to miss opportunities to manage conditions before they become more serious and more expensive.

“Spending more on primary care actually reduces healthcare total costs,” Hollister said. “And I think it's clear that that has to do with access. It has to do with people getting in the door to primary care and primary care being able to then, in an inexpensive way, manage the issue.”

Many Americans live in maternity care deserts, according to the March of Dimes. More than a third of U.S. counties (35%) do not have an obstetrician or hospital with a delivery unit, the March of Dimes says. Several states have maternity care deserts in over half of their counties.