Yeah, your incompetence-o-meter sounds like it’s spot-on. Or, you’ve only dealt with physicians who have shitty time management skills and you somehow decided that is a quality in a good physician. I have had plenty of physicians who were very good at what they do, and guess what? They also have time management skills. They are not mutually exclusive, no matter how many doctors are in your immediate family.
I see you’re still having problems with your reading comprehension. I make several notes including # of CME’s (bet you don’t have a goddamn clue what that is) and board certifications that play into my choice of physicians. And I’ll bet you don’t have a goddamn clue as to whether or not your physician has any pending lawsuits or has ever been in rehab. You just see the white coat and assume competence. Because you’re an idiot and a member of the general public.
I don’t see my family either, and I choose to see some physicians that do have wait times.
I’m glad you’re a special snowflake that has qualified doctors who are also on time. Stop being a sniveling little turd and go back to pissing into the wind.
This is very much not true in all areas. My little town has a lot of docs for its size, many of whom are terrific, and you could probably get in to see most of them this week. The ones you can’t get in with (and have to wait inordinately long for when you do) are the ones that hand out ridiculous antibiotics for the sniffles or (more often) give out narcotics and benzos like candy.
Oh stop, you’re adorable.
[Moderator Note]This is IMHO, not The BBQ Pit. Take your pissing match elsewhere.[/Moderator Note]
Well, I understand delays - often when I’m seeing my doctor it’s for an “emergency” (meaning not a scheduled appointment, not a real emergency) and they had to fit me in. They always do a pretty good job of putting me in a room first.
BUT.
Then sometimes I wait an hour or an hour and a half! And she always apologizes when she gets in, but I never know “is this when I should stick my head out and find somebody? I need a damned antibiotic prescription!” Ergh.
My gynecologist has been way worse, though. She has improved since I pitched a bitch fit, but lady - once you’ve got me in a paper napkin, you had better get your ass in that room. I had to read a hundred pages of Dies the Fire, a truly horrible book that I will never forgive the Dope for suggesting to me, while freezing my ass off in a matching set of paperware. And I get that emergencies happen with obstetricians. Obviously. But somebody could come in and bring me a motherfucking blanket or something!
ETA - I know it sounds dumb, but sometimes when I’m waiting for my regular doctor (who I understand has squeezed me in) I start to wonder if I’ve been forgotten about. I start to get a little complex about it and am working my way up to grabbing a wandering person in scrubs when she walks in. (And I’d never change doctors - she’s awesome. But busy.)
In addition to my own years of practice, I’ve worked with several different clinics on efficiency studies and flow mapping, so I’ve thought about this a lot.
Emergencies and unexpectedly complex patients happen, but not very often. Far more common are no-shows and quickies, so they should more than balance out. And yet, most offices that run behind do so with surprising consistency–that is, every day at 3:00 they’re running 45 minutes behind.
Far more commonly, offices run behind because:
–there’s a bottleneck in the system somewhere. For instance, the front desk may not be able to process paperwork any faster when it gets busy, or one nurse may be covering three docs and can’t get everybody roomed in time.
–they let nonemergent walk-ins be seen.
–scheduled patients showed up late and were seen anyway.
–the doctor doesn’t care. I know doctors who don’t think anything of shooting the shit with a drug rep they know or dicking around on Facebook when they’re an hour behind with four irate patients waiting. (My former partner, for instance.)
These can be hard problems to fix, and usually there’s a tradeoff. If you want a doctor who doesn’t take walk-ins or late patients then your appointments might be more on time, but you’re not going to be able to show up late or walk in when you need to. If the clinic hires enough staff to keep things running during the peaks of the day then a lot of people will be getting paid to sit on their hands the rest of the time.
But the worst thing that a clinic can do is accept running late as inevitable. They should be proactive about it, offering to reschedule patients when they’re going to have to wait a long time, shifting into new modes when they’re backed up, and keeping patients informed (with a little contrition thrown in).
shudder I didn’t think there was more of one of the drug pusher in every town. Reminds me of a foreclosed house my parents were looking at on a lake in Palm Beach…they asked why the glass looked and the realtor told them it was because it was bulletproof. The previous owner was a narco doc :o.
But that’s interesting that you’re semi-rural and with plenty of doctors. Most places aren’t so lucky.
30 minute wait I can deal with. Hearing the doctor talk to someone about buying a condo for additional 30 minutes just outside the room door? That, I cannot.
I got fairly irritated the other day when I was made to wait 20 minutes or more after my appointment ended. My insurance pays 80% and I pay 20% out of pocket (no co-pay). They wanted to collect the 20% as I was leaving, but the doctor hadn’t written down which level of appointment it was (“brief” or “moderate” or whatever) and was already seeing some one else. Instead of billing me for the minimum and sending me a bill later if needed (which would have been $5-10–we are talking about 20% of the total difference in price), they very contritely but very firmly insisted I stay. It wasn’t too big of a deal because it was the end of my day, but annoying. I’ve been seeing the same doctor for almost ten years: it seemed ridiculous to hold me hostage over a possible $10.
It depends on how much I want to see the doctor. My GP is overworked, but he is the best damn GP in the city and he’ll go the distance for me if I need it. I go in knowing at least a 30 minute delay but expect an hour, but I also know I’ll get good service.
You’re a doctor, right? Only a doctor could be so certain that someone else’s time is unimportant. I particularly like how you equate walking out of a doctor’s office with a threat to sue. That’s the standard lame doctor’s excuse for everything. “It’s all because of the mean lawyers!”
I understand that a doctor needs to keep the patients lined up in the waiting room so that they don’t have any down time. I get that. But there’s a huge difference between a few minutes once in a while and an hour or more on a regular basis. Can some doctors really not figure out how to avoid being more than an hour behind day after day, week after week? Because every other profession can figure it out, even places that don’t claim to schedule appointments. Or is it that they think they have their patents by the nutsack, because they are sick, so doctors think they can do whatever they want?
My last appointment with my GP he was an hour behind at 9:00 am. Of course it was “because he had an unexpected emergency.”
I walked out on a doctor twice. My limit was 1 hour, and then I was out the door. It didn’t matter if I was still in the waiting area or in the exam room.
The first time I walked out, the receptionist at the desk started to give me grief, so I told her to get the office manager. The office manager came over, and I told her I would not wait longer than an hour for the doctor to show up. She told me that I would receive a bill from the office for the missed appointment, and I told her I would send the office a bill for my missed work time, my travel time, and gas. Needless to say, I never heard anything about it.
After this happened a second time, I switched to a smaller practice that wasn’t as busy, so it worked out well. (I also ended up with a better doctor.)
Incidentally, our family dentist lives down the street from us, and his office is in his basement. Frequently, we will get a call from his assistant that he’s running late, and whoever has the appointment should come 15 or 20 minutes late.
Funny enough, our Doctors came recommended and tend to be part of large busy practices. They and their staffs tend to have time management down.
Anything longer than a 30 minute wait, unless the support staff have an excellent explanation, and I am outa there and looking for a new doctor.
[tangent]I needed a couple of extensive root canals, and the dentist who did them had an early Bluetooth device. He never worked on my teeth unless he was on that phone, usually discussing his investments in various things. Now, I’ll grant that doing a root canal is probably pretty tedious, but I wanted his FULL attention on my teeth, dammit! I quit going to him, and I told the office manager why.[/tangent]
Um, that wasn’t directed at you at all.
Not Canadian doctor’s excuses. Try suing the federal government and see how it works out.
If your doctor is always late, find another. Nobody is chaining you to their waiting room chair. If your time is so valuable, you must be someone who sets their own schedule. Why exactly can’t you get the first morning appointment or the first appointment after lunch?
DoctorJ definitely nailed the 4 reasons why offices run behind, and I see #2 and 3 the most. Never experienced 4, that’s just obscene.
you guys don’t know how good you have it. i have no insurance and have to go to the local health department to see a doctor. unfortunately since i am diabetic i have to go fairly regularly. on average, from checking in to walking out the door, i will be there about 2.5 to 3 hours. most of this time is spent in the waiting room. this is if you have an appointment, by the way, which takes a minimum of a month to get. if you get sick or something and can’t wait for an appointment, you have to walk in, and you’ll sit there all day. they start taking walk ins at 730 am, and people will start lining up outside on the sidewalk about an hour before that.
i know it’s annoying to be kept waiting, but just thought i’d offer a little perspective.
I’ve actually had *shorter *waits at health department clinics and offices servicing primarily Medicaid patients than private offices, on average. I have no idea why.
Just popped in to say I start work in a new practice tomorrow which has a completely different concept about appointments.
You’ll all like this.
Booked surgeries with set appointment times in the afternoon and open surgeries in the mornings.
An open surgery means that there are no appointment times, patients are seen in the order in which they arrive by the next available doctor.
This has pros and cons.
From the point of view of patients it means that if one doctor is tied up with an emergency the others are still working, so no-one should be kept too long.
However, it does bottle-neck because obviously most people arrive wanting to be seen before 10am.
The doctors like it because patients self-police to an extent.
In booked surgeries you have patients who know they have 10 or 15 minutes and are intent on filling them, so will come with a shopping list of 1 urgent thing, 2 non urgent things and 1 unimportant-but-while-I’m-here thing.
In open surgeries people can see the busy waiting room and know that each minute they take up is a minute longer for someone else to wait, so tend to come on 4 different occasions about their 4 different issues.
I shall tell you how this goes…
FWIW I was running 10 minutes early all afternoon- a male patient appeared early on with a female interpreter to see me about a problem he refused to disclose to us females. That was very easily sorted out “please request an appointment with a male Dr and we will arrange a male interpreter for you”.
I like consultations like that. 