People recently released from prison might face challenges seeing a doctor

A pair of new studies point to two groups that might have a particularly hard time getting a doctor's appointment: people recently released from prison and people who see part-time providers. In the first study, researchers called family physicians accepting new patients in British Columbia to ask for an initial appointment. On some calls, they reported recently being released from prison and in other calls, they didn't. Just 43 percent of people who reported a recent prison release got an appointment, compared to 84 percent of people in the control group.

And in the second study, researchers looked at data from 114 clinicians in the U.S. and found that those who worked part-time had longer appointment backlogs, even when accounting for other factors.