Why is a Doctor's time more valuable than mine?

[cepmom]

I once had an appt scheduled for DD to see her ENT at 3:45. They called the day before to confirm her appt at 3:30...I told them, no, I scheduled for 3:45..my kids get out of school at 3:15 and there was no way I made an appt at 3:30 since I can't get to the office in under 15min. I told them I would be there by 3:45 like I scheduled. She told me the doctor won't be here at 3:45, you need to be here at 3:30. So I said I would try my best to be there, but I would probably be 5 minutes late. SHe told me if I was late then he wouldn't see us ~ he needed to leave by 3:45. So I dismiss my kids from school early in order to get to the dr's office by 3:30 and proceded to wait in the waiting room until, get this, 4:15!! SO much for the dr leaving by 3:45

 

[Tiggeroo]

my son broke his wrist/hand over christmas break. We called our orthopedist who couldn't see him until 11:30, it was 7am. He said if my son was in alot of pain go to the er and then come into his appt at the ortho. We went directly to the er and were there at 7:30 am. By 11:00 he still hadn't been seen and he was in alot of pain. We voluntarily checked out and went to the orthopedist.
Yesterday I got a bill from the hospital. I am furious about it. In the end i'm sure our insurance will pay most of it but it's the point. BTW - there were no emergencies at the er. No accidents, no anything. I checked. I would have understood. But my son's hand and wrist were broken in 4 places. He was in a good deal of pain and nobody was helping him.

 

[LMC]

WOW! Some of you are very lucky (those who get in quickly). My son sees alot of doctors and it's nothing for us to be in a doctors office for 3 hours. It usually is a 1.5 hour wait in the first waiting room, then you're moved to an examining room where it's another 30 min's, then you see the doctor, then you wait for them to come back in with any scripts or follow up information. After his "procedure" in April, I hope I never darken another doctors doorway again. Except the kids annual check up and two dentist visits per year.
It just really burns me up, not only am I waiting but a second person is as well (one of my kids) so they are eating up double the amount of our time. I guess when you have 3 kids it seems like you are always in a doctors office.
Oh, it's also a commute of almost 1 hour each way so the appointment eats up the whole day.

 

[pooh4evr]

Delilah -I feel for you my Dh is a Doc (Internal Medicine) and he works about 12-14 hours a day. Some people come in for what seems to be routine exams and it turns into something else so I am sure he gets behind at times espically with all this new medicare stuff and having to explain it all.

If you think Doctors are just out for your money or they are "money hungry" as someone else said- well maybe you are seeing the wrong Doc- It is NOT cheap (far from it) to be a doctor much less become one (our medschool loan payments are higher than our house payment)and recently payments to doctors here anyway have been DEcreasing as malpractice insurance premiums are rising sky high - one OB in DH office who has NEVER been named in a suit of any kind pays well over 200K a year for insc. just because he is an OB. What if you are the one in the exam room with some type of unexpected problem or if it was your loved one in the hospital should the dr just stop the exam when your 15 min are up and say make a new appointment or should they just leave the hospital at 900 no matter what? or would you rather have someone who is going to tale their time and do the job right and make you feel better?

Yes I do get a bit defensive about how people treat Doctors I know how hard they have worked to get where they are and what a truly high stress, job it is, with very little if any thanks when things go well but alot of blame when they don't.

 

[Maleficent13]

my son broke his wrist/hand over christmas break. We called our orthopedist who couldn't see him until 11:30, it was 7am. He said if my son was in alot of pain go to the er and then come into his appt at the ortho. We went directly to the er and were there at 7:30 am. By 11:00 he still hadn't been seen and he was in alot of pain. We voluntarily checked out and went to the orthopedist.
Yesterday I got a bill from the hospital. I am furious about it. In the end i'm sure our insurance will pay most of it but it's the point. BTW - there were no emergencies at the er. No accidents, no anything. I checked. I would have understood. But my son's hand and wrist were broken in 4 places. He was in a good deal of pain and nobody was helping him.

What on earth did they bill you for? Rent on the chairs in the waiting room?

 

[Mrs. Squirrel]

I have seen it from both sides, patient and front office staff. What irks me is not the waiting, but the lack of communication and general disreagard for the patient's time by many (not all so please don't flame ) front office staff. The staff knows when the doctor is running late, no matter what the reason, yet they never communicate this to arriving patients! You just sit there. . .and sit there. . .and sit there.

When I worked in a 5-therapist psychology practice, if we were running behind, we always called patients before they arrived to adjust their arrival time or re-schedule. That was before everyone had cell phones, so now it is even easier to do. It takes very little time and produces lots of happy patients!

With my own doctors, I always call ahead to see if they are running on time. In addition, if I have had a long wait (over 30 minutes), I address it with the doctor directly and immediately when he/she enters the room and asks, "How are you, today?" I respectfully tell them the wait I have had and ask, "If I arrived ___(fill in blank for the amount of time you have waited) late for my appointment today, would you have still seen me?" The three times I have had to say this, the doctors' answers have always been no and it seemed to cure the problem!

Am I the only one who has noticed a relationship between a the doctor's per hour charge and the the amount of wait time, i.e. the more the visit the longer the wait?!

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

my son broke his wrist/hand over christmas break. We called our orthopedist who couldn't see him until 11:30, it was 7am. He said if my son was in alot of pain go to the er and then come into his appt at the ortho. We went directly to the er and were there at 7:30 am. By 11:00 he still hadn't been seen and he was in alot of pain. We voluntarily checked out and went to the orthopedist.
Yesterday I got a bill from the hospital. I am furious about it. In the end i'm sure our insurance will pay most of it but it's the point. BTW - there were no emergencies at the er. No accidents, no anything. I checked. I would have understood. But my son's hand and wrist were broken in 4 places. He was in a good deal of pain and nobody was helping him.

I can totally understand. When I broke my finger I went to the ER at about 3:30 (during a blizzard too). It took an hour before someone even came over to acknowledge my existence. I was in pain and bleeding a lot too. After someone saw me I waited about another hour to get pain medication and an x-ray. Then about an hour later they told me that I broke my finger. (He actually said "Congratulations, you broke it." Gee thanks ) Then 2 hours later the nurse came over and cleaned me up and splinted my finger. I was in there a total of 5 hours. Three people who came in after me with sprained ankles all got out before me. I have sprained both my ankles badly before, I know that it is painful but come on. I broke my finger and was bleeding and couldn't find out from where. I shouldn't have waited longer than them. I am sorry your son went through that. I feel his pain.

 

[ChuckB]

I think I may have found the cure for docs who make you wait....afew yrs ago I broke my leg...we called ahead, they said come right on in, I get there, they put me in a room, I waited there on that table for 2 hrs, the doctor walked in I told him it was broken and needed an x-ray, has one of my friends there, we both told him it sounded like a high powered rifle going off, he said it didnt look broken, grabbed my leg and pulled it out striaght, after 2 hrs on that table I was in no mood for this, the pain was unbelieveable!!!!! I thought my friend was holding me to keep me on the table, when the tears left my eyes I realized I had the doctor by his neck tie, they dont make me wait anymore and dont touch until they listen to what happened, and the clinic has a policy of no neck ties.....

P.S.
my leg was broken in 2 places

 

[cepmom]

I think I may have found the cure for docs who make you wait....afew yrs ago I broke my leg...we called ahead, they said come right on in, I get there, they put me in a room, I waited there on that table for 2 hrs, the doctor walked in I told him it was broken and needed an x-ray, has one of my friends there, we both told him it sounded like a high powered rifle going off, he said it didnt look broken, grabbed my leg and pulled it out striaght, after 2 hrs on that table I was in no mood for this, the pain was unbelieveable!!!!! I thought my friend was holding me to keep me on the table, when the tears left my eyes I realized I had the doctor by his neck tie, they dont make me wait anymore and dont touch until they listen to what happened, and the clinic has a policy of no neck ties.....

P.S.
my leg was broken in 2 places

Yikes...broken in two places???? Love the way you handled it though....no more neck ties

 

[bananiem]

What a lot of people here don't realize is that the time they are given to show up they think is their appointment time. In reality it's there check-in time. That was put into practice so that the patients that show up 10-15 minutes late are not late. But it's irritating when you think you appointment is at 10:00 but in reality it's at 10:15.
I think a lot has to do with how many people are expected to be seen a day. One medical center my husband had to deal with the doctors were paid by how many patients they saw. The doctor that was highest on the list saw an AVERAGE of 120 patients a day (do the math), besides being the county coroner. His patients loved him though. The medical center here pays them a salary and for that salary it is outlined what is expected.

 

[Steffi]

Reading this thread is making me love DD's doctor and my doctor even more! DD's doctor is just wonderful, his office staff is wonderful and friendly, and the wait time is rarely longer than 10 minutes. Same thing goes for my doctor, I love him, love the office staff, and even though it's a large practice, the care is very personal and the wait time is usually only around 15-20 minutes.

Now I wish I could say the same thing for our dentist. After many times of waiting for 2+ hours (for routine cleanings and check-ups), I started making our appointments first thing in the morning, 8 o'clock. Imagine my surprise when DD had the first available appointment time of the day and still our wait was an hour and 20 minutes! Come to find out that the dentist doesn't even arrive at the office until 9! They just start scheduling appointments at 8 so that the office stays packed all day, I guess! And to top it off, his office staff is the rudest I have ever encountered, making the whole process even more unpleasant. Argh!

At least I can be thankful for the wonderful GP's in our life!

 

[SC Minnie]

I don't mind waiting at a dr's office if the front office staff lets me know even when I get there that they are running behind. It leaves me the choice to wait or reschedule.

 

[DawnCt1]

Your time is not less valuable. My doctor switched offices last year and she went from a moderate patiend load to, what seems to be bazillions of people! Her office is always crammed to the point where we wait over an hour. We have thought about switching but she is the doctor for the entire family and we honestly adore her. She knows us well, held my hand through two HORRIBLE pregnancies (not as my OB but as my regular doc) then was the doctor for my preemies through some tough issues. I cannot leave her. It's not her fault. It's the practice she is in.

We finally just talked to her about it and she left instructions that we are to get the first slot of the day (there are 6 of us so we represent a lot of poeple in her practice) from now on. It's not perfect but it's something.

Some of the practices, maybe in your doctor's case are not always owned by the physicians there. I have heard that some have a contract that requires them to book so many patients within a certain time frame. And then, you could have a "friend" like I have. Her SIL was diagnosed with Hep. A. Her DD needed an ID appointment. My friend was concerned so she asked if she could tag along. That made two. Somehow 9 people ended up in the office with her demanding to be seen. My "friend's DH, the DD, the SIL, the nanny, and goodness knows who else. That can throw off your day for sure.

 

[ceiligh1]

I used to work in an Urgent Care clinic. We had appointment as well as walk-in availability. Walk in patients would have to wait until all the appointments were seen but most did not understand that. When I first started there we had two doctors who were very slow, one would take a hour with a patient if we let her. Most of the time those were the patients they had seen for years and that patient would come in with an entire 8.5 x 11 sheet of issues she wanted to be seen for (but had not mentioned when making an appointment). Needless to say we got behind very fast. It got to the point that the front desk was instructed to put down fake patient names in the apointment book for that MD to leave a little breathing room we also knew that when Mrs Smith called no matter what she said give her an hour. I would even register patients and then let them go back to work and call them when the doctor was available or try to get them a new apointment.
THe longest wait I had ever had at that clinic was 8 hours. It was a horible injury day and when people come in bleeding/chest pain and then another who had a car fall on his head, it put people behind. I would tell the patients we had a serious emergency but people would still yell at the front office staff. I have so much respect for the front office staff of clinics now because of that job.

 

[iggbees]

my aunt is a dr (i used to work for her as a records transcriptionist) and has told us that what happens is that people will call and make an appointment about one thing and then bring up 50 other problems in their conversation with the dr. this really can set things back a lot, especially if the dr. feels obligated to talk to the patient about their problems and try to help them out. so what i have learned is to tell exactly why i am going to be there when i make an appointment, or when i'm in the room with the dr and think of something else that i wanted to ask about i do it quickly. i usually wait about 20-30 min to see a dr and i finally get in and i'm in there for maybe 10-15 min.

there are extenuating circumstances though, like the dr has an emergency at the hospital or something, but in those cases if he's going to be super late, they should just reschedule. it doesn't help anyone waiting for that long.

 

[momof2inPA]

I'll give a doctor a pass for being really late once, maybe twice, but there is no excuse for chronic lateness. It's rude and a total disregard of my time.

Once, I took my son to a famous pediatric plastic surgeon to have a cyst examined. The doctor had been called into the hospital for an emergency, so the office staff notified everyone waiting that there would be an hour delay. After an hour and a half, they had to cancel everyone's appointments. There were people there from three states who had driven for hours to see him, and they had serious, serious problems-- large hemangiomas, serious facial/cranial deformities, digits that had been re-attached. They all had to re-schedule. My son still has his small cyst. I felt so guilty being there with everyone else's serious problems, that I couldn't justify taking up the doctor's time.