Their time is more important than your time because they've triple booked all their patients in order to maximize profits. I hope 7min enough to discuss your entire physical health and chronic pain treatment options. If not they'll have to schedule you a follow up because there are other patients waiting! /s
Of course, they’re just greedy bastards. It’s not like there were too few doctors for too many patients.
Every minute you’re waiting your doctor is caring for someone else.
Most doctors would absolutely love to spend way more time with each patient, but they're not ultimately the ones in charge. The hospital administrators are absolutely intentionally overbooking their doctors to maximize profit. That's not even a thing they'd disagree with if you asked them. That's just how for profit healthcare works. America having a shortage of healthcare professionals came after that, because most people don't like working under those conditions.
Ehhh... Doctors have a hell of a lot of administrative paperwork for each patient they have to do. That's where the actual time goes. At least for Emergency Department doctors. I can't speak to private practice docs.
Growing up with a sibling who needed some pretty serious surgeries early on (and then needing some myself as a teen), I spent a lot of time as a kid in doctor's offices. I learned very quickly that going to a doctor's office and waiting is a good thing, because it means you are not the most urgent problem the doctor has to attend to. Someone else could be currently getting their cancer diagnosis explained to them, or the odds of making it alive through surgery, or any other dire shit people hear in doctor's offices. Just because you're there for antibiotics for a sinus infection it doesn't mean everyone is.
Like yeah, it's annoying to wait. You literally have the internet in your pocket though, you can entertain yourself. If you keep getting rushed out of appointments because you have too much to discuss you need to tell the front desk when you call that you need to be scheduled for a longer appointment. If your schedule allows it always do early morning appointments, they have shorter wait times because you're not dealing with 15 other people with appointments before you all being 5 minutes late and fucking up the schedule.
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What if you're the first appointment of the day?
If you’re the first appointment of the day you probably won’t wait much, if at all. This is dependent on your doctor, since some are on call at local hospitals or ERs in addition to their own practice.
My favorite is sitting there while my doctor of 5 years goes through my e-chart on her computer trying to remember who the fuck I am and what exactly is wrong with me.
At least she doesn't google anything while I'm there.
I once had a doctor Google my symptoms while we were both watching the screen. He even said “how did we even do this before Google?” Then he sent me for an unnecessary colonoscopy. He just so happens to be dead now.
He just so happens to be dead now.
The way you wrote it makes it sound like you were somehow involved in his demise. :D
If your doctor doesn’t know you by name, you should consider yourself happy. When you’re walking on the street and your doc recognizes you, I pity you.
I work in a clinic with many surgeons. Luckily they don't typically double/triple book, but it's not unheard of. Most of the time that they're late, it's because they were seeing a patient from before who was late, or they got called into emergency surgery which throws the whole outpatient schedule off.
One or two of the doctors just seem like slower workers, that happens too.
This sometimes happens with public healthcare where I live. I think it's more about there being too few doctors rather than profits, at least in our case.
I'm sure there are some offices that do that, but the answer is likely much simpler. People lie. And they lie to staff a lot.
It's not that they're triple booking, it's that everyone schedules an appointment but doesn't say what they're actually needing the Doctor for. So the staff schedule according to what a patient says they are there for, which should take say 15 minutes for what the patient says they need, but after the patient is actually there, they tell the Doctor about 3 other things they never mentioned to the staff ahead. This is what takes up more time than scheduled. Then there's the people that are late at the beginning of the day. First appointment of the day at 8am but they show up at 8:15 for a half'-hour appointment, and the Doctor still sees them, because their next appointment for 8:30 obviously isn't there yet, but that appointment now also goes long.
This then compounds through the day, helped only by pre-planned empty sections of the schedule normally for emergency appointments, people cancelling or not showing up, and people that actually are there for what they said they are getting in and out and taking up less time than planned.
I actually did ask my Doctor about why this happens once. Mainly it's because if a patient before you has something that needs more time it messes up the schedule for every patient after... and this happens every single day. If no one cancels their appointments, then this problem just continually compounds throughout the day. The best bet to being seen on time is to be the first patient of the day.
Or just intentionally show up a few minutes late and take the mild scolding from the receptionist. It's not like they're going to turn ya away
They will totally turn you away. Because of traffic I was 10 minutes late to my general practitioners office a few months ago and they refused to see me. I was pissed.
I wouldn't call 10 minutes "a few minutes"
I wish that were true. It isn't. My doc routinely sets me up as his first or second patient of the day and he's always late. Docs seem to like blaming patients for their own faults.
Doc went to medical school and you didn’t, therefore he is a better person and you will wait for their special attention. If you have to wait, that’s your fault for not being a doctor. Oh you’re an ace engineer? Fuck you I’m a doctor
Source: related to a couple docs and they are fucking insufferable
Credentialism. Some doctors treat their staff the same way. If an argument, no matter how logical, comes from someone that doesn't have an MD, PhD, or other doctor initials behind their name, it gets automatically dismissed. For some, it's even on non-medical stuff. This happens with non-medical academics, too.
Your tires need to be rotated, the tread is wearing unevenly. I know this cause I’ve turned a wrench or two.
Oh…you’re a doctor and don’t see a problem? Ok, pass the potatoes and if you die in a car crash…they’ll refer to you as Dr 👍
Officers in the military did this shit.
Fuck you, sir. Your PolySci degree doesn't count for shit when we are talking about non-ionizing radiation. No the High Fox isnt going to "fry" you and make you sterile, the standoff is 14 feet, stop waving me back.
Think about it. If the clinic staff are slow to room the patient, the physician likely tries to account for that. Additionally, your doc may have been rounding on folks (checking in on other patients) in the morning - e.g., say they did a surgery the day before, it's often best practice to drop in to make sure people are recovering well.
All of this adds complexity to an MDs schedule. Not to say that timeliness doesn't matter or that your time isn't important, but it's not always a matter of someone being late - it could be the result of patients not being roomed on time for the last 2 years, so your doc shows up at 8:15 because the clinic staff don't normally have the first patient roomed by 8 am.
Source: wife is an obgyn
you'd think they'd leave some gaps between their appointments to compensate for this phenomenon?
For the US: Sometimes the physician doesn't actually control scheduling, it is done by whoever owns/runs the clinic. Also, there arent scheduled gaps because lots of things need to happen when a patient shows up. So while the physician finishes up with the last patient and is doing their documentation, an MA or RN will start intake on the next patient taking them to their room, getting vitals, etc. Then the physician sees them. So even 20 min appointments are generally longer because someone might arrive on time at 1pm, then by the time they're checked in, in a room, done with vitals, it might already be 1:10. So there are like natural gaps that occur in the schedule. But I agree that the lack of transparency in the process really makes it difficult to stay on schedule. Ideally there'd be 1:1 appointment: documentation time for each patient, however payment structures are not designed for this. Instead they like to maximize the number of patients seen per day.
I've never had a doctor's appointment go shorter than an hour, even for a very minor or basic visit. Often they last about 2 hours.
I'd be willing to bet the actual interaction with the doctor is a short part of the 2 hours that you're there. And I think this is where a lot of the scheduling frustration comes in.
10 minutes? bro I've sat unattended in the room 40 minutes before
Try 2h and 21 min. I left
I would not try that, personally
it's been said in other words here, but that should be good news to you. you're probably waiting to hear that you're in good health because your doctor is busy telling the guy next door how long he last left to live.
i once waited 7 hours once for stitches in emergency because i cut my hand on a broken glass. the guy that came in after me (AFAIK) was an OD in an ambulance.
I don't think they care about our Yelp reviews.
Cats sitting up like that make for some of the best memes.
This is one of my favorite pictures on the internet.
What a magnificent strut
a good doctor would print and hang this as a poster in the exam room
Life pro tip: if you're going to be a bit late, call them and let them know. They just want to know if you're still coming dawg.
Maybe I'm too suburban but I've never seen staff get upset about being late by less than 15 minutes. Tbh I've never seen anyone even try to make an appointment still later than tha without just cancelling or pretending you never had one lol.
I'm not envious one bit about working in the healthcare industry. I've seen enough of it to stay well away from an absolutely necessary profession rife in red tape and leaches at the higher levels.
I was late to an appointment with my psychiatrist last week for the second time in the last few months, but the doctor and the people at the front desk were so kind about it both times. They checked to see if she could fit me in as a walk-in, and then apologized to me when they couldn't. They let me reschedule and didn't charge a fee (even though I checked, and the intake paperwork I'd signed at the beginning said that they could). They didn't even act annoyed with me for wasting their time, they were gentle and understanding even though I'd messed up and wasted their time and it made me feel infinitely better.
Idk, it's probably weird to post this here, I'm just really happy about it. Oh well.
You probably just put them back on schedule for the day so they were happy you got them out on time lol
I had this exactly happening to me one time while I was bleeding (not too seriously though). I had hold my shirt away from my body, while I was sitting there, in order to not cover it in blood. It was a bizarre experience to say the least ^^
Finally !I enter doctor office ! wait 30 minutes in doctor office
insurance forms waste everyone's time. med groups should collect premiums and cut out middleman