Americans might wait three months to seek healthcare after COVID-19 restrictions lifted, survey finds

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Reflex Symptomatology Man (Photo by: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

NEW YORK - Americans will wait one to three months to visit their doctors for non-coronavirus related health issues after stay-at-home orders are lifted, according to a national survey.

5,379 adults ages 18 and older were asked how long after shelter-in-place orders are lifted would they feel comfortable going to the doctor for routine care and appointments.

The survey by Alpha Health found that 35 percent would see their doctors immediately, 37 percent would wait one month, 18 percent would wait three months and eight percent would wait an additional six months or more.

Survey respondents were split in regards to their current comfort in seeking care for health issues not related to COVID-19, with 44 percent reporting that concerns about exposure to COVID-19 at a doctor's office is preventing them from seeking care while just over half (54 percent) indicated that such concerns are not preventing them from seeking care for health issues not related to COVID-19.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression, as 20.5 million jobs vanished in the worst monthly loss on record. The figures are stark evidence of the damage the coronavirus has done to a now-shattered economy.

Health systems are experiencing or may soon experience significant and unfavorable changes to their payer makeup as their Medicaid patient pools are likely to expand and a greater percentage of patients may be uninsured entirely.

"We expect to see patient demand return in waves when health systems return to routine and elective services," said Malinka Walaliyadde, co-founder and CEO of Alpha Health. "Health system executives, including revenue cycle leaders, are facing unprecedented volatility in work volumes, making it very challenging for them to staff their teams appropriately. Many health systems have also experienced crippling declines in revenue as they halted routine and elective procedures to direct the necessary resources to their COVID-19 response. As a result, healthcare providers are under immense financial pressures making their revenue cycle operations more critical than ever before."

The survey was commissioned by Alpha Health and conducted by SurveyMonkey via an online poll on April 17-23, 2020. The modeled error estimate rate for the full sample is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.