45% of seniors report longer wait times for care than 1 year ago, new RBMA survey finds
About 45% of seniors surveyed are reporting longer wait times for imaging and other healthcare services, according to new polling data from the Radiology Business Management Association, released Friday.
Another 31% said they have faced postponements in scheduling appointments, while 60% of those experiencing delays said they’ve struggled to find doctors who accept Medicare. The findings come from RBMA’s long-running survey of seniors, administered annually.
“These findings demand immediate action from policymakers,” RBMA President Jamie Dyer, MBA, chief outpatient operations officer of Bend-based Central Oregon Radiology Associates, said in a statement Oct. 31. “The message from the American public is abundantly clear: Not only should healthcare funding be protected from cuts, but there is a strong mandate for increased investment to address the current crisis in healthcare access.”
RBMA and its Radiology Patient Action Network, a coalition of imaging groups focused on advocacy, administered the survey in September. It included a nationally representative sample of adults 65 and older, garnering 584 total responses.
About 64% of women polled said they oppose any cuts to mammography and payments for other preventive imaging services under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. This potentially presents a “volatile issue” heading into the 2026 midterms, RBMA contends. Seniors living in urban areas were slightly more likely to experience care delays (34%) when compared to those living in rural geographies (29%). This likely suggests healthcare access challenges are not confined to isolated areas, the association added.
Besides the Medicare program, about 68% of seniors surveyed said they fear tariffs on imported medical equipment and drugs will “degrade provider care quality, limiting access to technology and treatments,” RBMA reported. Another 66% said Medicaid cuts outlined in the reconciliation bill, passed earlier this year, will reduce coverage, tighten eligibility and increase costs.
"This survey presents an undeniable narrative: Americans are facing a healthcare crisis that is exacerbated by longer wait times and physician acceptance, as well as concern for the effects imposed via proposed tariffs, chronic underfunding of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, and cuts from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” RBMA Co-executive Director Linda Wilgus, MBA, said in the same announcement.
The findings come the same day the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the final physician fee schedule. It incorporates what RBMA and other groups have labeled as troublesome cuts to practice-expense-related pay and “efficiency adjustments.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.