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.

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.

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.

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.

Give them a call. Generally get an appointment within 2 days.
Get told to take paracetamol for 2 weeks and make another appointment if the problem persists.

Drs are generally on time maybe 10 min behind but when I was in Australia they would regularly get up to an hour late.

Costs are generally subsidied by the national government so unless something comes up unexpectedly there is no cost. If something does then you pay a fee and your private health takes care of the rest.

UK and Australia I’m originally from the UK but lived in Aus for 20 years. I returned to the UK a year ago due to my Mom getting a terminal diagnosis.

In the UK I’ve had two GPs this year due to moving around. First GP you’d request appointments via an online form that was available for about an hour at the start of every day and they’d send you a date and time once they’d triaged all the requests. Usually got in within a day or two. Second GP requires a call, and you can book an appointment provided it’s not a busy day, again usually 2-3 days depending on how busy they are. Both GPs were via the NHS, so no upfront cost, just a small amount taken from your pay each month.

In Aus, my GP was free at the point of delivery. It was pretty easy to get appointments and if you really wanted to see him, you could just turn up and wait until he could fit you in. Sometimes a 2 hour wait, but you could put your name down and return in 2 hours. I’m planning to change GP when I get back so will probably end up finding one where you pay an additional fee. There’s almost no doctors where you don’t pay extra any more.

I usually book an appointment. Appear on the proper day. Get my exams done, leave, no money spent. If it’s like a screening for something that can be done in a public health clinic, I’ll go, spend about 30 mins to one hour waiting, talk to the doc, get whatever prescriptions they give me, get discharged and go home, no money spent.

If it’s urgent, I go down there. If not, I schedule an appointment (how soon usually depends on the severity. Can be the next day, or the next week).

Example: My oldest kid (12 years old) fractured his arm while in school last spring. I was notified right away, so I’ll picked him up at school and took him to the local clinic (3 minutes away) . The doctor wanted some xrays done, so he referred him to the local hospital and gave him some painkillers for the one hour trip (we live kind of in the middle of nowhere).

We arrived at the ICU (it was after “office hours”), so we had to wait 30 minutes for the x-ray tech to be available. Turned out a titanium rod insert was needed, which requires anesthesia, so they couldn’t do it the same day because of fasting requirements. Operation “scheduled” for the next day. He was given a temporary cast.

Day arrived, and while there was a bit of wait since it was something they’d just have to insert into the schedule for the day whenever possible. Surgery went according to plan, and he was given a sandwich upon waking up, as he hadn’t eaten since the day before. He had a new cast on that he had to keep for a couple of weeks. The local clinic could remove it, but they wanted to do it at the hospital so they could do a follow up xray to see that it was healing properly.

A few weeks later, and things looked good. Cast removed.

A couple of months ago he had the titanium rod removed without much ado.

My only expense was the fuel cost for driving to the hospital.

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Call the place, if it is infectious they put you on sick leave and you don’t have to infect all ppl at the doctor. If the sick leave runs out, most often 3 days or so mainly to get you to the next weekend. If the issue persists you got to them. Doesn’t cost anything beyond what you pay in taxes. Anything that’s more involved than the typical issues might have you go to several offices (general offices then to more specialised) until someone makes a decision on what it is and how to deal with it. Also no extra cost; those come when you have something that could be dealt with but is not needed. Like you will have a decent quality of life if they patch it every now and then instead of fixing it. Then you might have to pay for that special extra pls just fix it. At least that’s been my experience in Germany.

Canada… Depends what kind of visit really. I captain a few rec teams, so breaks or dislocations, we’ll go to emergency, get triaged and wait for a bit.

If it’s somwthing I’d like to get checked out but not urgent, I’ll schedule an appointment with my family dr, might take a week or 2?

For something sooner, I’ll go to one of the several walk in clinics nearby. Wait time really varies but generally pretty quick as long as I get there a little early.