Objective: To investigate the wait time to see a PD specialist 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 UK 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: 147 US PD centers were identified from the Parkinson’s disease Foundation’s website and from the National Parkinson’s Foundation’s 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: One hundred and fourteen centers (78%) provided the next available appointment date; 33 (22%) 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 1 day to 8 months. Fifty percent of centers (n=57) had wait times longer than 2 months and approximately one quarter (n=33) had wait times > 3 months. The wait time did not correlate with the number of PD specialists at a center (r=-.09, p=.37). The Figure shows the distribution of wait times

Conclusions: This study demonstrates great variability in the time to see a PD specialist in the US ranging from as little as 1 day to as long as 8 months. For many centers, the wait was > 3 months. Neither the variability nor duration in wait time correlated with the number of PD specialists at a center suggesting that further research is necessary to determine what contributes to these factors. The long wait time at most PD centers makes it essential to develop novel methods to ensure that PD patients have prompt access to specialty care.

This abstract has not been previously presented; however a version was submitted for consideration to the AAN 2016 meeting.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/how-long-is-the-wait-to-see-a-parkinsons-disease-specialist-in-the-united-states/