How Long Is the Wait to See a Specialist in Parkinson’s Disease in the United States? (S19.003)

Abstract

Objective: To ascertain the wait time to see a specialist in PD in the US. Background: PD patients who see a specialist have better outcomes and are more likely to receive treatment in accordance with AAN recommendations. The United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines state that patients with mild PD should see a specialist within 6 weeks of referral and within 2 weeks for more advanced PD. In the US, there is no equivalent guideline. Prompted by hearing concerns by PD patients about the difficulty obtaining an appointment with a specialist, we investigated the wait time. Methods: 105 US PD centers were identified from the Parkinson's Disease Foundation website and from the National Parkinson’s Foundation Centers of Excellence. Contact information and number of PD specialists at each center were identified from the internet. Each site was contacted by phone and asked about the next available appointment. Results:Ninety-one centers (87[percnt]) provided the next available appointment date; 14 (13[percnt]) refused to participate or were not able to provide the information. The average wait time was 2.2 months (SD=1.8) with a range of 2 days to 8 months. Fifty percent of centers (n=46) had wait times longer than 2 months and approximately one third (n=27) had wait times > 3 months. The wait time did not correlate with the number of PD specialists at a center (r=.03, p=.78). Conclusions: This study demonstrates great variability in the time to see a PD specialist in the US. For many centers, the wait was > 3 months and neither the variability nor duration was correlated with the number of PD specialists at a center. The long wait time at most PD centers makes it essential to develop novel methods to ensure that PD patients have easy and rapid access to specialty care.

Disclosure: Dr. Holmes has nothing to disclose. Dr. Maki has nothing to disclose. Dr. Martello has nothing to disclose. Dr. Reich has received personal compensation for activities with UpToDate. Dr. Reich has royalty payments from Informa. Dr. Reich has received research support with NINDS.