The average wait time for a non-urgent gastroenterology appointment in the U.S. is 48 days.  That’s nearly seven weeks between the moment a woman says, “Something’s wrong,” and when someone is finally available to provide care. But for too many women, seven weeks is seven weeks too long, and sometimes, far too late.

The gender gap in GI care Is real

According to the Mayo Clinic, one in four Americans live with a functional gastrointestinal disorder (FGID) like IBS or functional dyspepsia, with women bearing the greatest burden. Hormonal shifts, higher rates of early trauma, caregiving responsibilities, and chronic stress all contribute to both the prevalence and severity of these conditions.  Concurrently, colorectal cancer (CRC), once predominantly associated with older adults, is increasingly affecting younger women.  

Over the past three decades, the American Cancer Society sites that CRC incidences among women under 50 has surged by approximately 50%, with the most significant increases observed in those aged 20–39.  Moreover, diagnoses at advanced stages are becoming more common in this age group.  Yet, the very women most affected by both functional and serious GI conditions, especially in midlife, are often dismissed, misdiagnosed, or forced to endure prolonged waits for specialist care.

Delays can be fatal

A close friend lost his wife to colon cancer after she dismissed rectal bleeding as stress following the birth of their third child. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her late 30s. She fought hard for almost five years but didn’t live to see her youngest turn six. Her story, tragically, isn’t unique. Women are frequently told to wait it out, tough it out, or chalk it up to stress, diet, motherhood or menopause.

That needs to change.

Women know when something’s off, but too often, no one listens

I know too many women - friends, colleagues, loved ones - who’ve struggled to get the care they need. Their stories are all a symptom of a system that too often fails women when it matters most.

Take my friend Kim, an executive juggling a demanding job and three kids, who struggled with worsening GI symptoms for over a year. She bounced between providers, waited patiently for appointments, and was finally diagnosed with celiac disease. But by then, she was so depleted she had to quit her job just to recover.

Or my hair stylist Hannah, who spent years battling unexplained cycles of severe vomiting, repeatedly being told it was all in her head. It wasn’t until she stumbled upon a Reddit post with similar symptoms that she could finally name her condition (cyclical vomiting syndrome) and find a path to manage it.

Finally, my former colleague Elena, who like many women, lives with IBS as a long-term chronic condition. When she has a flare, she needs care that address her symptoms as she experiences them, and not three months later, when the symptoms have temporarily faded but the disruption to her work, home life, and mental health has already taken a toll.

These are smart, proactive women. But in each case, they ran into the same wall: a healthcare system that wasn’t built with them in mind.

Women at midlife deserve better

Midlife is often a tipping point: when hormones fluctuate, stress rises, and GI symptoms become impossible to ignore.  But it’s also when many women push their own needs to the bottom of the list. They’re raising children, leading teams, managing households, and caring for aging parents. And when symptoms involve digestion, stigma only makes things worse. Even when women seek help, they’re often met with long waits, superficial evaluations, and treatments that overlook the unique ways women experience GI disorders.

Traditional telehealth isn’t enough to address these issues. Most virtual care solutions weren’t built with GI patients, or midlife women, in mind. These platforms often lack the clinical specialization, real-time availability, and integration with care pathways that women need when facing urgent or complex symptoms. What’s required is a purpose-built approach: one that blends specialty-trained providers with intelligent workflows, ensures rapid access during symptom flares, and doesn’t rely on fragmented handoffs or one-size-fits-all models. Without this kind of targeted infrastructure, virtual care risks becoming just another waiting room, only digitized.

To enable viable solutions that work in the real world across geographies and income levels, commercial payers, physicians, health systems, practices, and state and federal regulators must all work together to remove friction and make specialty healthcare access seamless and effective.  With advanced virtual care and specialty-informed routing technologies, we can optimize specialty resources, remove systemic barriers and provide integrated virtual specialty solutions to women at scale.

‍

A moment to act

National Women’s Health Week is a chance to do more than acknowledge these disparities. It’s an opportunity to do something about it. That starts by making specialty care more accessible, more responsive, and more attuned to the reality women face.

About the author, Sheri Rudberg

Sheri Rudberg is the co-founder and CEO of WovenX Health – a company she founded to address barriers in accessing specialty care.  WovenX Health leverages advanced AI-workflows, woven together with specialist practices, health systems and a national network of specialty-trained advanced practice providers, to optimize specialty care access.  Together with its innovative partners, WovenX Health ensures women don’t have to wait months for answers, flounder alone during a flare, or give up on getting care altogether. This innovative approach brings GI expertise to women when and where they need it most, without delay and without dismissal.

‍