It’s also strange to me that every time I go to the doctor I have to sit and fill out forms like I’m a new patient. All my insurance info, again. My entire medical history, again. Consent agreements, again. This experience hasn’t changed in decades, and I don’t understand why.

I’ve asked, why do you need all this again and the answer is usually “oh we have a new system” or “we need to know if anything changed” (but that’s not what the forms ask).

My observation has been that after filling out the form, the office skims it and enters nothing in the computer. I guess that's the "nothing changed" situation.

Patient time is worth 0 to the medical system.

Quick guess: 1. lawyers and 2. principal/agent problem (the providers don't give a crap about your wasted time and the bad data they're collecting).