With new time standards established in medical services patients in health maintenance organizations in California could hope to see their doctors sooner than before. This means lesser appointment time and prompt answer to calls made to doctors.

According to California regulators, this would be the first state, which demands that H. M. O. patients should be examined by a general practitioner within 10 business days and a two weeks time be taken by specialist.

A patient’s call should be returned by a doctor within 30 minutes and 24 hours a day availability should be there. People with urgent needs should get attention within 48 hours. There was a lot of delay on the bureaucratic side but the law will finally be unveiled on Wednesday.

Experts however stated that to meet this demand more doctors would be needed that would in turn result in higher premium fees. The demand for more doctors could worsen if insurance is extended to 30 million more Americans by the Congress.

Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, said, “These are groundbreaking firsts in national consumer protections to ensure patients get the care they need, when they need it.”

To ensure proper law enforcement consumer complaints would be relied upon followed by an audit of a plan’s records and a fine if warranted.