Canada. It’s generally easy and free (no direct cost to me). I try to avoid having to go to my doctor whenever possible and I live with a nurse (and my doc knows that). Usually when I send him a message, either by email or by calling, he’ll have a follow up question or two (sometimes none) then decide a course of action and move right to implementation. Sometimes that’s sending a script to my local pharmacy, sometimes that’s a referral to a specialist. Who knows? I haven’t seen the guy in years. But if he made the request for me to go in, I would without hesitation.

I know my experience isn’t the same as others, since my doctor and my spouse have actually worked together; but still. It’s all free and there’s usually minimal waiting.

The only significant delays I’ve heard of in Canadian healthcare relate to major procedures when the issue is non-critical. Like getting an MRI as a precaution, to make sure things aren’t messed up or something (IDK what MRIs are used to diagnose, I am not a doctor).

Everything is triaged, so if you’re not actively dying from a thing, and you need a big piece of equipment to scan you to figure something out, you’re going to be waiting a while.

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.

East europe: Just use government level 2fa to sign into a health portal and send a message about your problem. It usually is answered within a few hous and you either get prescription or a checkup in a few days. If a specialist doctor is needed, wait times can be up to a year, unless you go the evil hypercapitalist route and pay them the price of happy meal to get a visit at a private clinic. All procedures are free or practically free. ER now costs like a tenner cause idiots would not fucking stop wasting their time with things like “oh I have a tick” and “oh my kid sneezed once”

United Kingdom, Dorset.

My 3 year old daughter was vomiting and not keeping liquids down. Phoned the non-emergency line and after a bit of a wait, spoke to them and went through the script.

Was told to go to A&E and we would be expected. After a short wait there, was led down to the children’s ward and she was given a bed in her own room. She was put on a drip, had antibiotics and kept in overnight. By the end of the following day she was able to keep down water and some toast so was discharged.

Had a follow on call from a GP the next day, she was back to normal in a couple of days.

Cost: £0 (I contribute to the NHS through general taxation)

Germany. When I am sick I call my doctor in the morning ask what time would be best to go there as to not wait too long. Then I go there, wait maybe an hour sometimes because he likes taking time for his patients, tell him my symptoms, get a sick note for work and possibly a prescription if I need medication.

I dont pay anything for the visit. If I need medication I will go to the pharmacy near my flat after the visit give them my health card, get my medication and depending on what drug I got pay a little bit, maybe 5€ , maybe a bit more.

Honestly depends.

If it’s life or death urgent, an ambulance arrives, takes you away and with any luck, fix you right up. Visitors will likely have to pay to park at the hospital, and that will be your biggest expense. When my dad had a cardiac arrest, it was during covid, so the parking was free. The biggest expense was cleaning his blood off the carpets and putting their cat in the cattery for a week.

If it’s something non-urgent, and the cause isn’t immediately found by a doctor, then you might go on a waiting list and be seen in a few months maybe. And even then it might not get sorted. It’s not like House.

The most annoying bit is the 8am phone roulette to try and get an appointment.

Canada, I make an appointment with my family doctor, usually within a week, free. Specialists are more annoying because our right wing provincial government keeps chipping away at public healthcare and justifying it with its own results, but generally goes pretty quick too.

Sweden.

A few alternatives:

• I could book an appointment at the local health center. I would probably get a time at the earliest next week, and it would cost me $30. Health center doctors are generally quite overworked, and can sometimes be a bit dismissive of your issues in my experience, but they will help you. If you need specialist care, they will give you a referral, which could take several months depending on the priority of the case and the type of specialist.
• I could use an app to get access to a video call with a doctor, after having described my symptoms in the app. I would get a video call the same day and it would cost me $30. Given the remote nature of this kind of contact, they can be a bit limited in what they can do for you, but will try to help you regardless. If your case requires in-person examination, they will ask you to go to a health center instead. If you need specialist care, they will give you a referral and you’ll have to wait the same amount of time as for a referral in the health center scenario.
• I am lucky enough to have a private health insurance plan through my employer. If I have any problems, I’ll submit them to this private health insurer, and they put a human on the case and connects me with a specialist right away if the problem warrants one. Typically this happens the same or the next day. This costs me nothing, apart from what I pay in benefit taxes to be on the private health insurance plan.

All in all, things work fairly well in Sweden, but having gotten private health insurance has definitely jaded me a bit on account of how much better the experience is when you have that. If only the public system wasn’t systematically underfunded and run by the dumbest politicians on offer in the country, then maybe everyone could have great patient experience.

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

France, not a big city. If I’m sick. I call the doctor office, in another city because all doctors here have no places. I may book an appointment in two or three weeks. If I really need a doctor, I can book an appointment to “sos doctor”, that I will pay for a part (and part healthcare), or go to a non-vital emergency doctor at night, which is expensive (for a doctor in France) but reimbursed by healthcare. I can have access to this because I’m still in/near a city.

The waiting time in a doctor office can be long, depending if they take time for their patients or not. I’m ok with that. If I have an appointment to my usual doctor, I don’t pay or I only pay a little part which will be reimbursed minus 1€ (50/year max). There are doctors with exceding fees, like “sos doctor”, those feeds are out of my pocket. Most of the time, we have healthcare AND private insurance, but there is a health insurance for poor people.

For medecine, most of the times we don’t pay anything but there are fees, 1€/medecine box (50/year max, but not the same as the 50 for doctors).

i just go 😊

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.

I call my Dr.

I book an appointment. If urgent but not medically urgent to my immediate wellbeing I can get in in a week or so.

If urgent, but not emergency, I can go to a clinic or the hospital non emergency (hospital can have wait times up to several hours)

If emergency and severe or traumatic injury or life threatening - emergency at hospital. Triage assesses need. Last time I had to take someone it was maybe a 20 minute wait - they had been hurt pretty bad - got jumped.

None of any of the above will cost me any money.

An ambulance, though, costs like 75$ if it is not life threatening.

Canada.

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.

From US and was visiting Singapore when I came down with a sinus infection.

Took the elevator from the government controlled housing to the ground floor.

Walked 5 minutes to the attached small community strip mall which consisted of cheap food options, a grocery/convenience store, and a number of essential stores including a small drs office.

Waited 15 minutes, saw the dr. Explained my condition, allergies and medication I usually take and went through the exam. We had to help look up some of the medication names.

Paid $35 for the exam. There was some confusion because I expected it to cost more and I asked about. They apologized and said that since I’m foreign I had to pay full price.

Walked across the mall to the small pharmacy. Waited 5 minutes for the antibiotics prescription. Paid maybe $5?

Bought some tea from the grocery and was better over a few days.

People from the US who travel and need healthcare know very well our system is the worst.