this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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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"
Doc was behind already and had something after work they were not going to miss. Did they also charge you for missing the appt?
Docs could schedule in some extra time to better accommodate the eventual appts that run over, but then that doesn't maximize profit.
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
Having worked in healthcare my entire adult life, I can safely say that nearly every MD/DO thinks they're a super being, better than anyone they perceive beneath them. It's a huge fucking problem. They do not think other people's time is more important than theirs.
I’ve literally watched an MD grab a chart, read it and then go get a coffee cause the pt can wait (JUST a leg infection spreading). No one is more important than Dr Me
Sometimes when you're on hour 12 of your shift working 6-7 shifts/week, after having dealt with 20 similar patients that day, you need a coffee before being able to properly evaluate the next potentially lethal leg infection.
If that's the truth then it's even less acceptable than just simply being late.
My doc isn't checking in on other patients when I'm his first patient of the day. His practice opens the same time he's booking the appointment for but I've gotta wait 10-20 minutes for him to check in on other patients? Doubtful. Also, every single job I have ever had says that if you need to get stuff done then you show up early to get it done. This Doc can't show up 10-15 minutes early to make some phone calls and check in on the patients?
If the patients aren't being roomed on time because of staff that 2 years deep into incompetence, then maybe you should look into changing your employees over punishing your patients? That seems like the clinic staff are the problem. Not the patient. Why am I paying with my time because the clinics employees can't do their jobs? It takes 1 minute, maximum, to get put into a room. You walk up to the screen, tell them your name, and then when a room is available they tell you to go to it. I cannot find a single reason why a Doc would think it'd take 15 minutes to get that done.
Yeah for sure. The clinic staff can make a huge difference and it's not always the physicians administrative responsibility to ensure that the clinic runs on time. They can influence that, but do you know how challenging it can be to replace physician assistants and/or nurses? They're in very high demand.
Agree with a previous comment that some docs have a god complex and don't care about other people's time.
Overall it would be great if the world aligned with the time slots I have scheduled for activities and appointments, but it's not always as easy as it appears in semi-complex environments.
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.