Why does the dr's office have to completely close for lunch?

[Anonymous]

what drives me insane about my pediatrician's office is they don't have email. would be much more convenient to email for things like school forms, notes, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctor's offices need to be open during lunch time. Every other business manages to get the employees fed(!) and still be responsive to their customers. Having these offices closed for 1-1.5 hours in the middle of the day is ridiculous. And closing at 4:30 in the afternoon, puhleeze.

Daughter of a doctor here.

Do you think that when the doctor's office closes at 4:30, the doctor just goes home? Or to golf?
No, that is likely when he goes to the hospital to visit any patients of his that have been admitted. He may also do house calls during that time.

Doctors also usually have to be "on call" several days a week (depending on how many are in their rotation), so i suppose they might need to close their office in the afternoon since they will likely be working through out the night several nights per week.

Maybe you should go to medical school and become a doctor, and YOU can be the CHANGE within the industry.

Defensive much? I think most of these comments are about the office staff, not the doctors themselves.

[Anonymous]

My former doctor did this -- and also set appointments at 8:30am even though she never arrived before 9:15.

And she did NOT use the lunch hour to get caught up. I was once there for a 10:30 appointment, sat in the waiting room for 90 minutes and then was told the office was closing for lunch.

Seeing why she's my former doctor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what drives me insane about my pediatrician's office is they don't have email. would be much more convenient to email for things like school forms, notes, etc.

I know when i worked at a doctor's office,even though some doctors wanted what you mentioned above, it was apparently costly and a little difficult to get a secure enough line to comply with the law about privacy

[Anonymous]

My guess is that if they did not officially close, they would end up working over their lunch constantly. One appointment would merge into the next, patients would show up and demand to be seen. Patients would see someone from the office staff or a doctor resting, eating or talking on the phone and throw a fit. Etc.

My doctors office closes for lunch and closes at some insane time - like 4pm or 4:30. I can still get an appointment when I need it, so its fine by me. And if it allows my doctor to be sane, all the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that if they did not officially close, they would end up working over their lunch constantly. One appointment would merge into the next, patients would show up and demand to be seen. Patients would see someone from the office staff or a doctor resting, eating or talking on the phone and throw a fit. Etc.

My doctors office closes for lunch and closes at some insane time - like 4pm or 4:30. I can still get an appointment when I need it, so its fine by me. And if it allows my doctor to be sane, all the better.

Agree. Also, our pediatrician's office has 5 doctors and 4 nurse practitioners and NONE of them work M-F. This actually makes me happy. They are all off at least one day a week - I think this makes up for the night/weekend call shifts they each take. They are a great practice and very responsive so if this is what makes them sane and nice to me, more power to them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what drives me insane about my pediatrician's office is they don't have email. would be much more convenient to email for things like school forms, notes, etc.

I think that there are legal, privacy, and billing issues that keep it from being used by many practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what drives me insane about my pediatrician's office is they don't have email. would be much more convenient to email for things like school forms, notes, etc.

I think that there are legal, privacy, and billing issues that keep it from being used by many practices.

well my own doctors have email so i don't think these are insurmountable hurdles. i'm not asking for medical advice by email after all - just ministerial/administrative stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctor's offices need to be open during lunch time. Every other business manages to get the employees fed(!) and still be responsive to their customers. Having these offices closed for 1-1.5 hours in the middle of the day is ridiculous. And closing at 4:30 in the afternoon, puhleeze.

Daughter of a doctor here.

Do you think that when the doctor's office closes at 4:30, the doctor just goes home? Or to golf?
No, that is likely when he goes to the hospital to visit any patients of his that have been admitted. He may also do house calls during that time.

Doctors also usually have to be "on call" several days a week (depending on how many are in their rotation), so i suppose they might need to close their office in the afternoon since they will likely be working through out the night several nights per week.

Maybe you should go to medical school and become a doctor, and YOU can be the CHANGE within the industry.

I come from a family of doctors. How old is your dad and where does he practice? The trend nowadays is for doctors to use doctors called "hospitalists" to do their hospital visits for them. House calls?! Never heard of someone doing these unless they had wealthy or celebrity clients. That said, doctors do catch up on their paperwork and phone calls during their lunch and when they are not seeing patients.

[Anonymous]

Email would be NUTS! I do not mind calling around lunch hours. Of all the inconveniences in the world, this is about number 837.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doctor's offices need to be open during lunch time. Every other business manages to get the employees fed(!) and still be responsive to their customers. Having these offices closed for 1-1.5 hours in the middle of the day is ridiculous. And closing at 4:30 in the afternoon, puhleeze.

really?? You are funny. With office closing at 4.30, they'll be lucky to finish patient charting and insurance documents to leave 2 hours later then to go and see patients in hospital then spend several nights a week on call answering phone calls from patients through dinner and yes even being woken from sleep many times in one night. Indeed, the nerve of them to close at 4.30

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctor's offices need to be open during lunch time. Every other business manages to get the employees fed(!) and still be responsive to their customers. Having these offices closed for 1-1.5 hours in the middle of the day is ridiculous. And closing at 4:30 in the afternoon, puhleeze.

Daughter of a doctor here.

Do you think that when the doctor's office closes at 4:30, the doctor just goes home? Or to golf?
No, that is likely when he goes to the hospital to visit any patients of his that have been admitted. He may also do house calls during that time.

Doctors also usually have to be "on call" several days a week (depending on how many are in their rotation), so i suppose they might need to close their office in the afternoon since they will likely be working through out the night several nights per week.

Maybe you should go to medical school and become a doctor, and YOU can be the CHANGE within the industry.

A doctor's daughter and yet not too bright. The thread is about the office staff. Nobody is taking issue with how much doctors work.

[Anonymous]

It's to catch up. They take that hour to chart and return phone calls, and lots of times they're running behind from the morning and patients are still there for at least half of that hour anyway. This way they're back on track for the afternoon.

[Anonymous]

So many of you have no fucking idea what it's like to work in healthcare... whether it be a nurse, doctor or receptionist.

[Anonymous]

Well, they (the whole office) also socializes with reps. It's not as common as back-in-the-day but they still have lunch meetings to discuss the practice, drugs, etc. Most staff must work limited hours in MD so as not to incur overtime (45+ hours per week). They also sometimes go overtime with patients, return patient calls, pharmacy calls, etc. Lots to be done!