How many other businesses would we be fine with operating like this?

I feel a lot of appointment-based businesses are like this. They're trying to slot in as many services into one day as they can. Them making you wait is acceptable because they're with another customer (Though I'm sure they wanna wrap it up with them quickly too). You making them wait is unacceptable because that'll throw off their carefully timed appointment schedule.

It ain't great but that's the bitch of this damned money world huh

Airports work like this. You arrive two hours before takeoff only to find out like half an hour before takeoff that the flight is delayed because there's no plane.

As a UK doctor, this made me laugh but equally part of the reason we run late is because of patients who don't show up on time. If you have a full day of clinic (14 patients, say) and half of them are 10 minutes late, there's your hour gone.

And don't even get me started on my GP job, where I had 22 patients per day. You were pretty much reliant on some people not turning up to regain lost time from latecomers. Not to mention people would arrive at their 10 minute appointment with a list of 5 completely separate medical issues that they'd been saving up for months. So either you do a full history, examination, diagnosis and treatment plan +/- prescription in 2 minutes for each problem, or the 10 minute appointment just becomes a 20 minute appointment. And then you document everything in your lunch break or after you're supposed to have gone home 🙃

Because every patient before you was 10-30 minutes late for their appointment so now you have to wait an hour.

At one point I setup an appt with a doctor, 3 weeks set date, and to be the first one in the morning, like 9AM, he cannot be late, right? I left at 11:30AM without seeing him.

The last time I took my daughter to the doctor's, we had the 8:30am appointment. First of the day.

I was feeling pretty optimistic that we would be in and out by 8:45.

So we arrive at 8:20 and take our seats in the waiting room. 8:30 rolls around, no call. 8:40, no call. 8:50 no call. At 8:55 a side door opens and 8 doctors stroll out with coffees in hand and make their way to their individual consulting rooms.

At 9:10 we got the call to go in.

I get that they might need to have a morning meeting to get setup for the day, but 8 doctors each wasting 40 minutes, and the entire appointment book playing catch-up for the rest of the day, seems like a colossal piss take.

Why not, like, have your meeting earlier.....?

Their time is actually more important than yours

I think veterinary offices are the only places I can understand. Everyone there is underpaid, working hard, enduring trauma, and doing it because they love animals. Although I've never seen them get upset at someone for being late!

Reading the comments in this thread just indicates to me that we need more doctors. The supply of doctors is definitely artificially restricted

I had this happen when I was at my Dr's appt. I needed a script for oxygen. Prior to that, I watched several people walk in, get called to go to one of the examination rooms almost immediately. The thing is that each one of the other patients was obviously in far worse shape. When I finally was seen, my Dr started apologizing profusely. I told her that I know what triage means and to not worry about it. Stuff happens. If I was one of the others, I would want relief too.

Our patient visits are set as 15 minute slots standard.

This isn’t enough time to practice good medicine for anything much more than something like a flu or strep throat. How does one squeeze in an entire rooming process followed by a solid HPI, physical, poc testing and then plan review with pt in 15 minutes?

They don’t.

But with how medicine works (in the US) it’s the how clinics make enough money to stay open.

For clarity: I work at a Federally Qualified Health Center, not a for profit clinic.

The best way to fix this is to cancel the appointment if they make you wait. If enough people did this the clinic loses money which should cause change. Unfortunately, patients are largely a captive clientele, having already waited months and canceled work and with few if any alternative providers.

The next best thing is much more realistic. Plaster the internet with reviews complaining of the wait. If your doctor (or more likely your doctor's employer) does not respect your time, let everyone know.

Many of the other comments are also correct. I have worked in clinics in government, military, academic centers, venture capital, physician owned, and even free community health centers, all in the USA. Doctors running late is going to happen. I've kept patients waiting while in the operating room, while telling someone they have cancer or are losing a limb, and by my burnt out underpaid government scheduler incompetently overbooking. I will also tell you that when I have at least a little control over my own schedule, I've never made a patient wait an hour, even with the above happening. It can be done, it just isn't because for decades timeliness has not been a financial incentive.

Make it one. Name and shame on google, yelp, zoc doc, wherever. Do it gracefully and sensitively, recognizing that there is a high chance the delay is not the doctor or nurse's fault. Done right, you'll do them a favor when their employer feels the sting of lost patients.

Don't forget waiting for hours, going to the toilet for a leak and returning to see you've been skipped

I had this discussion recently and my friend pointed out that this also happens with utility workers on in-house visits, I guess cause of the demand there is on their work. At least where I live.

But I can't take it with doctors man. Also it's the only business where you can pay to get insulted or diminished, yet not diagnosed, repeatedly from different specialists (true story)

Try 3 hours, it's the reason I bought a miyoo mini plus, just to take it to doctor's offices.

I told my wife, the day I see an actual fucking doctor when my appointment time is, I'll either die of shock or but a lottery ticket.

In my experience you're lucky if some not-an-MD is checking your weight and blood pressure within half an hour, but if you're five minutes late they're sending you a bill for them doing literally nothing and canceling you entirely. I've never seen anybody so high on their own fucking importance while at the same time showing not the slightest smidgen of respect for the time of anyone else unfortunate enough to have to interact with them.

I wish I had a job where I could fuck up the timing of every single task every single day that consistently and still be employed. Not that I would, because I recognize that other people's time matters.

How many other businesses would be fine with operating like this

The Apple Store, for starters.

Ticketmaster, also, too.

Went to my appointment Friday, was told my primary stopped working Fridays 2 months ago. They were the one who scheduled the appointment 3 months ago

Last time i was a the doctors office, my appointment was at 11. At 11:45 i was still waiting and i heard them laugh in the break room 😑...

My favorite was my psychologist who knows I'm autistic and routine and schedule is everything to me. Then doesn't show up for 30 minutes and then call me saying their previous appointment went on longer than expected... this happened almost every other appointment. Eventually i quit because it gave me more anxiety and stress than the trauma's i was dealing with. 🤦🏻

"My time is important, your time is unimportant".

At the office I worked at, the receptionist was underpaid and didn't give a fuck, and the manager was 100% revenue motivated and didn't give a fuck. The MD had tunnel vision on his work and couldn't be bothered to get his staff under control. Also everyone was high. 🤷‍♀️

Ok but how come i have to fill out that paper every time i come in? I've been to the same clinic over and over. Do they just throw my information away? Is it busywork to buy them time? I know it's a minor quibble but fucking hell

It it was only an hour ⏳💀

Inland Revenue has entered the chat

I have a few doctors like this.

One in particular, you have to schedule your whole day for the appointment. Even if it's virtual.

There's the call for the copay, the call for the vitals, the call with the midlevel, then the call with the doctor. I've waited over 5 hours just for the doctor before.

My next appointment with that doctor is after business hours. I am not looking forward to that late night.

A previous provider of mine changed locations. The front office staff took 2 months to tell patients. We showed up for an appointment we had made a month earlier and they laughed at us. Easiest decision I have ever made.

An hour? Try three to four hours. I'd pay through the nose to only wait one hour past appointment time.

I don't put up with it lol. If someone is 15 late for an appt, I reschedule. Black and white. No exceptions.

Permanently Deleted

Haha good meme. Good work buddy I like it :)

Medical care suffers from the same thing all heavily-regulated quasi-markets suffer from: severely restricted supply.

This results in:

• Insufficient competition
• High prices
• Low quality work
• Low quality customer service
• Low availability and hence queueing

People complain that medicine should not be a free market, and look how bad the free market screwed up American medicine but we do not have a free market in medicine.

If we did have a free market, supply would be allowed to organically grow to match demand, introducing competition and solving all of the above problems.

But we artificially suppress supply of medicine and medical services. We call it regulation, and sure maybe it’s got its reasons for existing, but the natural and predictable result of such heavy-handed regulation is a lack of supply, leading to a lack of competition, leading to a lack of quality.