Waiting times

Every hospital has waiting times. For that reason, it is often the case that patients cannot be admitted to or get an appointment at the outpatient clinic straight away.

Your wait time at the outpatient clinic uitklapper, klik om te openen

Do you want to know how soon you can be admitted to the outpatient clinic? Check the page about your outpatient clinic to see if the waiting time is known. The waiting time is always an estimate and can therefore be longer or shorter than stated here.

Waiting time for surgery uitklapper, klik om te openen

If you need surgery, you would prefer to have your turn as soon as possible. For some surgeries, the wait time is now longer than normal across the country. This is annoying, and unfortunately this is also the case at UMC Utrecht. Patients who need immediate care never have to wait and are always helped as soon as possible. But patients who qualify for difficult, specialized treatments - for example, urinary tract surgery or jaw and breast reconstruction - unfortunately sometimes wait a very long time.

Waiting time for tests and treatments uitklapper, klik om te openen

If there is a known waiting time for examinations or treatments, we always mention it on the website. Unfortunately, for many examinations and treatments we do not know the waiting time.

Waiting time search for an examination or treatment (indication).

Why do some patients have to wait a long time? uitklapper, klik om te openen

Waiting times in hospitals occur because there are more patients than the hospital can treat. The speed at which patients are helped depends on the medical necessity of the treatment. In cases of emergency, there is no waiting time. However, some patients have been waiting a long time; this can be due to several reasons:

• More and more people need care, partly because people in the Netherlands are getting older.
• For specialized care, sometimes only a few specialists are available throughout the Netherlands, which quickly leads to waiting lists.
• Before corona broke out in the spring of 2020, there were already waiting lists due to a shortage of care workers. The corona crisis has only increased the waiting lists. There are also still too few care workers.

We are very sorry that you have to wait a long time for treatment. We are doing everything we can to help you and all our patients as best we can. For this difficult situation we ask for your understanding. Healthcare is and remains human work.

Contact your therapist uitklapper, klik om te openen

If you are worried or your symptoms are getting worse, you can always contact one of your practitioners in person. You can do this through the My UMC Utrecht patient portal.

Waiting list mediation uitklapper, klik om te openen

Did you know that you can use the waiting list mediation service to find out, together with your health insurer, where you can receive the care you need sooner? Health insurers offer this service free of charge. Here you will find an overview of the care mediation services of all health insurers. The maximum acceptable waiting time jointly agreed upon by healthcare providers and healthcare insurers (the Treeknorm) for an appointment is 4 weeks. For treatment, the maximum acceptable waiting time is 7 weeks.