The Numbers Behind the Frustration
In a 2023 mystery-shopper study published in General Hospital Psychiatry, researchers called 948 psychiatrists across five states posing as new patients. Fewer than one in five — 18.5% — were available to see a new patient at all. The most common reason was the simplest one: the practice was not taking new patients, full stop. For callers who did find an open door, the median wait was 67 days for an in-person appointment and 43 days for telepsychiatry.¹
For context, the average wait for a new-patient appointment across other medical specialties is 26 days.² Psychiatry is not a little slower than the rest of medicine. It is two and a half times slower — for conditions where motivation itself is a symptom.
What the Gap Actually Costs
- Readiness decays. The client who said yes in your office was at a motivational peak. Ambivalence reasserts itself within weeks — especially in the avoidant, the anxious, and the executively challenged, which is to say, the clients who most needed the referral.
- Symptoms compound. Two months of untreated escalation can mean a lost semester, a job in jeopardy, a marriage further eroded — outcomes a timely evaluation existed to prevent.
- The therapy stalls with them. You spend sessions managing the holding pattern instead of doing the work. The treatment plan is hostage to someone else’s calendar.
- Trust takes the hit. You recommended this. When the system fails to deliver it, some of that failure lands — unfairly but inevitably — on the recommendation, and on you.
What to Tell Clients While They Wait — and How to Shorten It
“The wait you’ve heard about is real, but it’s not universal. Practices differ enormously in how fast they can see you. Before we accept a two-month timeline, let me point you to options that can move within days — because the version of you that’s ready today is the one I want in that first appointment.”
— Sample language for the client staring down a waitlist
Practically, the levers are: prefer telepsychiatry, where median waits run weeks shorter¹; call promptly while motivation is high rather than “sometime this month”; and know, before you need it, which practices in your referral network can actually move. The last one is the difference between a referral that happens and one that evaporates.
The Ascent Answer to the Two-Month Wait
Ascent Psychiatry was built specifically to close this gap. Referred clients speak with a dedicated Care Navigator who handles scheduling, paperwork, and records, and the first appointment — extended, unhurried, with a physician who has more than twenty years of experience — happens within a week. Statewide, via telehealth, anywhere in Pennsylvania. The moment your client says yes is the moment we are designed for.
Referring Is Simple
Have your client call (215) 876-5015 or email info@ascent-psychiatry.com and mention your name. Their Care Navigator takes it from there. If you would like to talk with Dr. Modan first — about a specific client or just to know who you are referring to — we are glad to set up a brief introduction call.
Sources
- Sun CF, Correll CU, Trestman RL, et al. Low availability, long wait times, and high geographic disparity of psychiatric outpatient care in the US. General Hospital Psychiatry. 2023;84:12–17. Mystery-shopper study of 948 psychiatrists in five states: 18.5% available to see new patients; median wait 67.0 days in person vs. 43.0 days telepsychiatry; most frequent reason for unavailability was not taking new patients (53.9%).
- AMN Healthcare / Merritt Hawkins. 2022 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times and Medicare and Medicaid Acceptance Rates. Average of 26.0 days to schedule a new-patient physician appointment across 1,034 physician offices in 15 major U.S. metro areas.
Ascent Psychiatry provides personalized, accessible, compassionate psychiatric care across Pennsylvania, with first appointments within a week.
Integrative Psychiatric Care at Ascent Psychiatry
Dr. Modan takes a whole-person approach, combining evidence-based psychiatry with informed discussion of nutritional and integrative options. Schedule a consultation to discuss your care.