It’s nearly impossible to get a primary care doctor in Bangor

When Alfred Russo moved to the Bangor area from Boston two years ago, he thought it would be easy to find a new doctor.

Then he started calling primary care providers last summer.

“I’ll just never forget like the way my jaw hit the floor when they said how many thousands of people were in front of me,” Russo said, adding that some providers told him there were more than 1,000 people on the waitlist and it might take a year or two to get an appointment.

“I’m not eager to be the person who just goes to the ER or urgent care as their primary care,” he said, but until he finds a provider that can take him, he hasn’t had any other options.

Many primary care offices in Bangor have monthslong wait times, far exceeding the national average. A 2025 study found that the average new patient family medicine appointment wait time in the U.S. is just over 23 days.

A new primary care office, the urgent care company ConvenientMD’s first in Bangor, opened its doors in August. It already has more than 2,500 patients and an approximately six-month wait for first-time appointments.

“The demand for primary care in Bangor and across northern Maine is clear. We’ve seen it in how quickly the Bangor practice has grown in just a few months,” ConvenientMD spokesperson Jennifer Harris said.

The difficult landscape for Greater Bangor residents trying to find primary care is symptomatic of a provider shortage in Maine and across the country.

“That demand for care really sort of continues to grow, and the supply of providers hasn’t really kept up,” said Dr. Lisa Billings-Lindsey, medical director for primary care at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center.

This mismatch between supply and demand is especially challenging, Billings-Lindsey said, because primary care providers are an entry point to other health care. They’re often a patient’s first stop when they need help.

Although Billings-Lindsey was unable to provide specific figures for primary care wait times at the health system’s offices, when a Bangor Daily News reporter called Northern Light Family Medicine and Residency office about getting a primary care doctor, an employee said the waitlist likely stretched until the end of summer 2026 — an approximately seven-month wait.

Northern Light Internal Medicine is not currently accepting new patients, an employee told the reporter.

When the reporter inquired with St. Joseph Hospital about getting on its primary care waitlist, an employee said it was about 1,800 people long. A spokesperson for the health care system did not respond to an email requesting confirmation.

ConvenientMD is accepting new patients in Bangor with a wait time of about six months for a first visit, according to Harris.

“There’s a lot of demand, and we want to be upfront about timing so we can bring on new patients at a pace that allows us to provide consistent, high-quality care,” she said.

The practice’s three providers treat about 2,600 patients in total, Harris said, and a fourth provider is set to start next month.

Penobscot Community Health Care has about 450 people on its waitlist for all locations, according to a statement from the organization. It has openings for new primary care patients in Belfast and is also accepting pediatric patients in Belfast, Bangor and Old Town.

“Our patient intake specialist is contacting and scheduling patients every day,” PCHC said.

Some patients may turn to smaller or more specialized clinics for their primary care as appointments remain difficult to come by.

The Mabel Wadsworth Center, a reproductive health care provider in Bangor, is taking new primary care patients and scheduling out to April, according to Aspen Ruhlin, the center’s community engagement manager.

Although Maine Family Planning, another reproductive health organization, was forced to close its primary care practices last year after the Trump administration barred it from receiving federal Medicaid funding, the Mabel Wadsworth Center is still providing primary care services and is able to bill MaineCare for them, Ruhlin added.

A new model called direct primary care is also growing in Maine. These clinics do not accept insurance and instead provide services on a subscription-based model.

Brad Tuttle, co-owner of Apotheosis Health, which opened in June, said his practice is currently taking new patients and can typically schedule them within the same week. He plans to go up to about 400 patients and is about half full now, he said.

“It seems like nobody that takes most of the major insurances have any availability,” Tuttle said, adding that he thinks “direct care is going to really help” ease high demand for primary care services.

Tuttle noted that many of Apotheosis’s patients are low income or don’t have health insurance, and he’s seen a lot of interest since the start of 2026 from people whose insurance costs increased substantially after expiring subsidies pushed premium costs up.

Practices in Bangor are struggling to meet high demand amid a statewide health care provider shortage.

Parts of most Maine counties, including Penobscot County, have a health professional shortage designation from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. Recent data indicates that Maine is projected to have a primary care shortage of 120 physicians by 2030.

The Health Resources and Services Administration’s 2025 primary care workforce report attributed the nationwide shortage in part to lower earnings and higher rates of burnout for primary care providers compared to other specialties.

Experts cite many reasons for the shortage in northern New England specifically, including an aging workforce and  difficulties recruiting providers due to lack of housing.

“Maine’s primary care shortage reflects an aging population with more complex needs, an aging physician workforce, and a national decline in physicians choosing and staying in primary care — especially in rural communities,” Maine Medical Association president Dr. James Jarvis told the Bangor Daily News.

Billings-Lindsey, the EMMC medical director for primary care, also noted that recruiting to Maine can pose unique challenges because of the state’s remoteness.

“Coming up to Maine may feel a bit more isolated for them,” she said, referring to providers who aren’t familiar with the region or are used to living in more populated metropolitan areas. She said when recruiting, she tries to stress the great things Maine has to offer.

Northern Light is “actively recruiting” more primary care practitioners and just hired a few recently, Billings-Lindsey said. The health care system is also trying to improve support for its providers to increase retention, she said — for example, offering an AI scribe program to help cut down on the “administrative burden” that can bog down primary care providers.

Harris, the ConvenientMD spokesperson, also noted recruitment as a key part of her organization’s strategy to reduce wait times. ConvenientMD is aiming to go up to five providers in Bangor practice and is “actively exploring additional locations in the region,” she said.

PCHC named reducing wait times a “top priority,” adding that it created a new patient intake specialist position in December to help assign new patients to primary care providers and provide support in the new patient process. They can also walk people through going to urgent care if needed before their first primary care appointment, PCHC said.

This new hire has contacted about 600 new patients so far and scheduled almost 400 of them, mostly at PCHC’s Brewer location, the organization said. Its Brewer office has four new providers who see up to 12 patients per day.

PCHC also recently paid a $100,000 application fee imposed by federal immigration services so a physician from the United Kingdom could apply for an H1B visa, which the organization said “demonstrates our commitment to stretching our limited dollars to support the health of our communities.”

While individual Bangor providers are working to get patients in faster, a long-term solution to Maine’s provider shortage may be beyond the scope of what any one provider can do.

“Fixing this will require payment reform, stronger rural scholarship and loan-repayment programs, and reducing administrative burdens so physicians can go back to the joy of caring for their neighbors,” Jarvis, the Maine Medical Association president, said. “We look forward to working with partners at the state and federal level to find solutions.”

Russo, who moved to the Bangor area two years ago, is still looking for a primary care provider.

“The funniest thing to me is that I got right into the vet,” Russo said. “Well, it turns out my dog has a lot better medical care. Because he’s been to the vet like three or four times and I have not been able to get the primary care provider.”