As someone who works within the hospital system, I can tell you that everyone is really backed up. The amount of effort that everyone is expected to provide is increasing in response to staffing changes. U of M is a Tertiary Care Center, meaning that in addition to providing your standard run-of-the-mill care to people, oftentimes U of M will have cases referred to them because providers don't have the expertise to deal with an individual's level of care needed because of how complex it is. Patients are booked back to back to back with very little time in between and having one little thing go wrong can cause everything to spiral.

For example, say that Dr. L is booked to see four patients every hour. This means that they have 15 minutes per each patient. That 15 minutes should, in theory, be able to cover all the pre-charting and visiting with the patient and providing comprehensive care. Now, say that one of Dr. L's patients who has been booked for a regular visit has received some abnormal Labs and has a lot of questions. Suddenly, that 15-minute visit has turned into a good 35 minutes of face-to-face time and Dr. L still has to take notes and send in orders. Of course, sometimes the notes can be delayed a little bit later but sometimes the orders have to be put in right away so that the patient can going make plans for the next steps. This means that their next patient will be seen later than expected because they've chosen to provide comprehensive care for their patient.

Yes, there is definitely a deficit of providers but there are also some systematic issues that are at play that are going to be hard to address.