My doctor doesn’t take appointments in the morning. You turn up and take your turn. (He also bulk bills so there is no cost). Given all that I just take a book.
For the ophthalmologist it will depend - I would never walk out but I can understand their having delays on a Friday (people get worried if they have something in their eye and don’t want to have it there for the weekend).
For lawyers, I expect them to be on time. They are allegedly professionals.
I call you in at 3. My 2:15 meeting runs late because the person’s case turns out to be more complicated than I expected, or maybe I am stuck in Court after lunch because the judge has some additional issues she wants to go over in chambers?
I am being unprofessional?
I had a doctor years ago who only had office appointments in the middle of the night 11pm - 7am.
When I called for an appointment, my name was put on a list. 15 minutes before the doctor could see me his nurse (my sister-in-law at the time) would call to wake me up. I’d get out of bed and head to his office. I never had to wait, and he would sit and talk to me as long as I wanted. He always said if you talk to someone long enough, you eventually find out what’s wrong with them.
This doctor did rounds at the hospital during the day, so I don’t know when he found the time to actually sleep. Unfortunately, he died rather young. He was a great doctor and he’s missed by a lot of people.
Once I was done with the OB side of OB/Gyn I switched to a doc that only did GYN. No more baby delays!
I’m fairly flexible- an otherwise good doctor/lawyer etc I give a lot of latitude to.
Never have. Once got a call about why I didn’t wait and I told them that the doctor missed his appointment, not me.
I can wait a pretty long time for almost anyone IF someone explains it to me. The other day I was at the cardiologist’s office for the first appointment of the day and he was 20 minutes late. I was annoyed and he didn’t say a word, (you know, like sorry I’m late). But when I went to leave the appointments clerk told me the office was being remodeled and some things didn’t work, including some of the doctors’ computers etc. and that’s why he was running late, trying to check in on some of his hospitalized patients via computer. Well, if he had mentioned that I would not have been so teed off. So, you know, customer service = communication. Could we have a class on that?
I once worked for an attorney who had scheduled a routine physical with his Doc, and told them apponitment had to be punctual as he himself had appointments to keep afterwards. The Doc’s office had policy of checking in 15 minutes early to ensure timeliness, If not there at time of appt, you were rescheduled and billed for a missed appointment, etc.
Turns out attorney had to cancel on four of his established clients because Doc kept him waiting about two hours after scheduled exam. It was established, through Office Mgr, that Doc had no emergencies or other distractions-of-necessity during the wait, he was just dragging ass (Office mgr hinted Doc was hung-over from previous night, fwiw). And the appointment was only the third one scheduled for that morning, just to be safe, so attorney thought.
Attorney sent bill for his standard-fee time spent losing his income for no good cause and said it would go to court if not paid. Doc blew him off, so attorney took it to court and since Doc could not show any reason/good cause for making a patient miss his clients, attorney won. Doc was pissed and started yelling and had to be told to leave courtroom immediately with warning that he better pay up 
That is one way to bill a Doctor that has no reason to not keep reasonably to scheduling, IME.
I love my OB/GYN and I think he’d have to die before I’d switch.
I started going to him after having issues with a previous OB/GYN…namely that she was a major bitch who told me when I first saw her after getting pregnant with my son that I WOULD induced because it fit better into HER schedule that way.:eek:
:mad:
Later…I think when my son was around a year old or so, I got freaked the fuck out when I had a period that lasted for nearly a month (I’ve never had that happen before and it hasn’t happened since, so I don’t know what the fuck that was about). I called her office, freaking out and her receptionist (or whoever it was) said she was on maternity leave (Ok…fine…whatever) and she was only taking SERIOUS cases. I didn’t have a SERIOUS case. At that point, I asked if there was another doctor she was referring her patients out to while she was on maternity leave and the receptionist (or whoever it was) told me no. I was freaking out, I was crying. I didn’t know what to do.
I ended up finding another OB/GYN in the same hospital and I’ve been with him ever since. He is awesomesauce and win. 
I am fairly patient with doctors because, frankly, there is simply no way for them to avoid delays at times. Doctors, especially GPs, deal primarily with old people, and old people are slow and often inconsiderate of other people’s time. My GP might want to see me at 2:20 but if the previous three appointments are rambly old people what’s she gonna do? Ten or twenty minutes isn’t going to kill me. I can check my email.
Two hours, though, come on.
I’m an asshole for hire by the minute (take that as you may 
.)
At my regular office, I avoid booking clients back-to-back, and use the gaps between them for paperwork and returning calls. If I’m running seriously late, I discount my client’s bill by the amount of time I am late (e.g. if I meet with a client for an hour and a half after being half an hour late, I only bill for an hour). Although this costs me money, it is more than worth it in goodwill, given that word of mouth (through other lawyers and through satisfied clients) is how I get most of my good clients.
The exception is when I spend a day at a satellite office in the middle of nowhere once or twice per month, where meetings are only on minor matters, and where the nearest restaurant open in the evening is an hour and a half away and shoos everyone out by eight. For that office I book back to back, no break, resulting in client’s sometimes having to wait fifteen minutes to half an hour, but it usually balancing out over two or three meetings. The frustrating thing is that the single greatest cause of delay is clients failing to bring ID and having to go home for it, despite having been reminded by a clerk both via email and via phone. Since there is a possibility of a wait, the clients are advised of this when they call to book an appointment, and if the matter is not time sensitive, they are encouraged to meet at my city office which is a day’s drive away. The bottom line is that I’m not going to spend an extra day in the boonies on minor matters with zero profit (other than goodwill and one heck of a beautiful drive) so as to prevent clients from possibly having to wait fifteen minutes to half an hour. They’d rather put up with a bit of a wait than a two days of driving and a stay in a hotel.
In my personal life, I avoid over-booked physicians like the plague, so of the three whom I use, two usually run on time or only five or ten minutes late, and the third, who usually runs several hours late (yes, several hours late – very chatty and no sense of time at all), simply has his receptionist call me, so with him I just book a short day for office work only, and drive over when I get the call.
Years ago, I was in a doctor’s waiting room for so long that I fell asleep, only to be woken by his receptionist and told it was time to leave. The doctor stayed late that evening before I left.
Wildly egotistical for sure. The eye surgery wing of the hospital is called the “Michael J. Kapusta eye surgery”. I assume he (or his family, a wealthy family from Sherbrooke, Que.) actually paid for it. Ego is his middle name. And no, you can’t check in by phone. You must appear in person at the opthalmology wing of the hospital and go through a preliminary eye exam by a technician. Then you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait some more. Once I had an appointment at 3:50 and didn’t actually see him till 7:30.
Dr’s and hospitals I’m good with, but just can’t manage it at the dentist. I’m terribly dental phobic and there’s only so long I can sit in the waiting room and anticipate before I’m too much of a ball of fear to even considering getting work done.
I have walked out after 30-35 mins. (I’m always apologetic and explain myself in a few words, whilst trying to keep fear from leaking out of my eyes.) They always seem very sorry, and the dentist I have now, gets me into the chair inside of 10mins after I arrive. (I tried to bolt after a 30 min wait once, but she very calmly talked me down. She’s a very good dentist!)
Mostly the Dr’s I’ve seen, have been pretty timely. I’m sure that makes it easier to tolerate an extended wait, when one does arise!
Yes … if you fail to use your cellphone to call your secretary, to have her call them and let them know that you are running late. If they know, your clients can adjust their plans for this. That’s the professional way to do this.
Repairmen of all kinds use cellphones to keep me updated regarding appointments. Heck, the kid who mows my lawn does that too.
Doctors I’ll wait and (sorry) be patient as needed. Sometimes stuff happens and they have to deal with it. One appointment a few years back, cold or something like that, the guy before me basically had a heart attack during the exam. Needless to say I got pushed way back on the scale of needing attention now and I understood.
Other than that, not so much patience or understanding for lawyers and others who most folks would consider professionals. But I do at least try and wait for the explanation before finding a new one.
Oh wow. Thats a great example. Have to keep that in mind.
It depends. I had a doctor once who tended to run a little bit late, but he was a great doctor and he’d give me as much time as I needed once he got to me, so I was cool with waiting and always came prepared with something to read.
But I did once walk out on an appointment after sitting in the back room for over 45 minutes. It didn’t help that they had asked me to strip down and it was cold in the room. I finally got dressed and left, never to return.
People always want their doctor to take all the time necessary with them, but not be late to the appointment. But both aren’t possible unless you are the doctor’s only patient.
I try to get the first appointment of the day with doctors, and I have not had enough interaction with lawyers to be able to judge how late they characteristically run. I ask for a physician’s assistant where possible for my “doctor’s” appointments - nearly always I know what is wrong and what should be done or prescribed. PAs IME are better at keeping on time.
I don’t particularly care which doctor I see - they are all board-certified so I kind of assume they are equally competent, and I can give them whatever history they need. The doctor who did my eye surgery was very busy, but also good about managing time, and when he did the operation I was so wasted I had no sense of time anyway. So he could have been two hours late or two hours early - all the same to me.
Regards,
Shodan
I am willing to wait, especially the first time, for about 30-40 minutes. But if it’s a consistent thing I will just never go back. It depends on the reason why. I “fired” one doctor because he kept letting old people walk-ins go ahead of me and the other appointment. It pissed me off so much. The old lady would walk in and say “Oh my stars and garters I never made an appointment but I need to see the doctor” and sure enough, she’d be next.
In those days I wasn’t confident enough to go to the receptionist and demand an explanation. I just waited, stewing, and then never made an appointment again.
Now I am much less patient and my time is more valuable. I generally can tell though ahead of time. If you call a doctor and they say, “Oh we can’t get you in for three months”, hang up and call the next one on the list. That doctor is way too over booked and has no idea how to manage his time. You don’t necessarily need the most famous doctor.
Can you really be surprised that an ent doctor wasn’t very hasty?