Launch the wait-time guarantee

Year 1 (registry), Year 2 (enforceable guarantee) · UHA Office of Patient Advocacy; regional officesDiscuss this step

Every concrete action this step requires, who is responsible, and when it happens relative to enactment.

#	Action	Owner	When	Trade-off
2.5.1	Set maximum waits: urgent care same day; primary care 7 days (non-urgent) and 48 hours (acute); specialist consult 30 days; elective surgery or procedure 90 days after decision to treat; diagnostic imaging 21 days; cancer treatment 14 days from diagnosis; mental health intake 14 days.	UHA / clinical panel	Year 0	Short maximum waits protect patients but are expensive to meet with limited capacity.
2.5.2	Build the national wait-time registry: every referral and scheduled procedure is time-stamped through the claims and encounter system.	UHA	Year 1	A registry makes waits measurable but adds reporting work for every practice.
2.5.3	Publish waits by region, specialty, and provider monthly.	UHA	Year 1+	Publishing provider-level waits informs patients but can push demand to the best-rated providers and lengthen their queues.
2.5.4	Activate the guarantee: patients past the maximum get a voucher to any provider; the cost is charged back to the regional budget, which pressures regions to fund capacity.	UHA	Year 2	Charging vouchers to regional budgets creates accountability but can pull money from the regions that are already short.
2.5.5	Create clinical triage: urgent cases are categorized by clinicians, and the guarantee runs from the triage decision.	UHA / providers	Year 1	Clinical triage prioritizes urgent cases but creates incentives to classify cases as non-urgent to avoid penalties.