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Comment by speedgoose | Hacker News Reader

It depends on the location. In Norway they are usually perfectly on time, you don’t have any ads, they do the required tests and examinations, they listen to you, they take the time to explain everything and will do drawings if necessary, they tell you to do more sport, and you get billed about $25 (but it becomes free if you spend more than $300 in visits and medications during the year).

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I'm in New Zealand and my experience matches the GP comment, except cost and pharma ads. Long wait times and disinterested doctors are the norm.

Might be a consequence of oil wealth offering a government savings rate of $200,000 per citizen?

No, I don't think the oil fund (https://www.nbim.no/en/) is responsible for the culture to be on time or is connected directly to the public healthcare finances. Though being a state with money helps, obviously.

That's an asset, not a savings rate.

USA's mean household Net Worth is $500K more than Norway's, and average household is about 3 people (some households are single people) so the oil fund approximately cancels that out.

There are other places with a similar experience that don’t have the same oil wealth. I wonder though if it’s different at the higher end of things, like expensive treatments for major issues which a tighter public purse might not stretch to.

Perhaps you could explain how a fund that doesn't invest onshore does this. The government uses only a small percentage of the return on the fund (not the capital) each year.

> perfectly on time

> they do the required tests and examinations

Do you have a source or is this anecdata? I do agree with your other claims though.

Not really. I said that based on the experiences from my close family. The sample size is small.

My experience (N=~5) is that the waiting times for legevakten are in the order of a couple of hours for anything non trivial. I have also observed some reluctance on preventative tests at the fastlege.

I don't mean to contradict your observations, but our experiences could have been different based on our age, location, gender and what we're being treated for. Selecting a good GP matters a lot too.

I personally have a good exprience with good doctors (which one, with some time, can find), but perfectly on time is not realistic, as time with patients can't be predicted.

Even in the US you don't get Pharma ads in a hospital.

Have you ever seen those brochures and flyers in the waiting room (and sometimes even the exam room)? Those are almost entirely supplied to the practice by pharma reps. Every U.S. doctor's office I've been in for the last four decades has been full of them.

I have seen zero such brochures in every US doctor’s office I have visited. Zero.

Is there any study that shows how prevalent they are?

Not to say that you had a very unique set of experiences but having been in many doctors offices and worked in a number, in the US there are generally brochures, pamphlets, pens, note pads, and the worst of all TV SCREENS advertising pharma crap.

The only place I haven’t seen brochures is my direct patient contract doctor (concierge) and even then he has natural herbal supplements for various things.

So just saying your experience is atypical. But it sounds like a dream.

Curious, are there any references? I have seen zero. Of course, I see tons of ads on TV so if the Dr.'s office has TV on, that may be one source. But I am curious about ads outside of the TV, haven't any like that in a Dr's office.

Besides brochures, these ads also come in the form of posters and bulletin board posts. Next time, also look at the walls.

It only takes one person's evidence to prove your generalization wrong. My last visit to a podiatrist had dozens of ads on the walls and television that was airing nonstop commercials for medical products. Nothing makes for a better captive audience than excruciatingly long wait times.

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