Doctor was 45 minutes late after appointment time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With all these doctors feeling totally overwhelmed (and I absolutely believe that is true!) why in the universe is the AMA so vocally opposed to "scope of practice" creep.

Get some more NPs and PAs in these offices to treat the vast majority of issues.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctor/
Prompt care NP mistreated supracondylar fracture
NP misdiagnosed "dislocated" shoulder
Psychiatric NP gave me serotonin syndrome
etc

Docs miss things too, but it's a matter of the odds and a matter on whether you have a healthy fear/understanding of what you don't know.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctor/comments/yb0fjg/perhaps_the_most_crucial_thing_ive_learned_in/
Perhaps the most crucial thing I’ve learned in medical school, is just how much I do not know.

This is dumb statement. There is no data showing NPs/PAs have a higher level of error than MDs. In my family my husband's epilepsy was mismanaged by a provider in a manner that could have killed our entirely family if we had gotten in the car 5 minutes earlier, and my father's cancer was blown off by a doctor as a "sinus infection." So based on those odds I probably should never go to a doctor again, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With all these doctors feeling totally overwhelmed (and I absolutely believe that is true!) why in the universe is the AMA so vocally opposed to "scope of practice" creep.

Get some more NPs and PAs in these offices to treat the vast majority of issues.

Because I have taken care of patients after seen by NPs and PAs. It's a crapshoot what you get -- sometimes good, sometimes verging on malpractice the things they miss. If they were well supervised, it would be more reliable, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

So hire the good ones.

More excuses.

Wait -- what percentage of those coming out of training do you think are "good" enough in that way?

Why do you want to only hire those coming out of training?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With all these doctors feeling totally overwhelmed (and I absolutely believe that is true!) why in the universe is the AMA so vocally opposed to "scope of practice" creep.

Get some more NPs and PAs in these offices to treat the vast majority of issues.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctor/
Prompt care NP mistreated supracondylar fracture
NP misdiagnosed "dislocated" shoulder
Psychiatric NP gave me serotonin syndrome
etc

Docs miss things too, but it's a matter of the odds and a matter on whether you have a healthy fear/understanding of what you don't know.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctor/comments/yb0fjg/perhaps_the_most_crucial_thing_ive_learned_in/
Perhaps the most crucial thing I’ve learned in medical school, is just how much I do not know.

Hey, grandpa. It's 2022 and we have competent NPs/PAs. Get over yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to say that this hasn't happened to me. I'm with Kaiser and have 3 kids (so tons of appts). I've never waited more than 15 min. Usually they're right on time. Kaiser isn't the best with everything but I definitely don't have the problems you all are having. I don't even wait at urgent care because you can schedule appts.

Kaiser manages this by sending every "urgent" issue to their urgent care center....where you will wait for a very long time. Most docs don't have this option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With all these doctors feeling totally overwhelmed (and I absolutely believe that is true!) why in the universe is the AMA so vocally opposed to "scope of practice" creep.

Get some more NPs and PAs in these offices to treat the vast majority of issues.

Because I have taken care of patients after seen by NPs and PAs. It's a crapshoot what you get -- sometimes good, sometimes verging on malpractice the things they miss. If they were well supervised, it would be more reliable, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

So hire the good ones.

More excuses.

Wait -- what percentage of those coming out of training do you think are "good" enough in that way?

Why do you want to only hire those coming out of training?

I don't know how to put this without sounding insulting, but if we are creating more new positions across the field, you need people to fill them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I had an Ortho show up 40 minutes late once. I was his first appointment of the day. I saw him arrive while sitting in the waiting room. I asked him why I was kept waiting so long and he lied and said he’d been stuck with another patient. I told him that I saw him walk past me with his coat on his arm and a cup of coffee.. Never went back to him again. This was at CAO Ortho in foxhall.

If he is an ortho surgeon he might have been held up doing rounds prior to going to his practice. Some of you don't seem to understand what doctors do.

So...poor scheduling. Allocate more time for rounds.

Allocate more time from where? They can’t control if 7 new ortho patients got admitted overnight and suddenly they are rounding on 12 patients instead of 5. Or 20 instead of 5.

Start office hours later on hospital days.

It's not that hard to figure out.

Got it. So, see fewer patients overall. Sounds ideal. Hope you don’t need to see a specialist anytime soon because they’ve taken your advice and your appointment date for your brain tumor is in March 2024.

Yes, see fewer patients if you can't figure out how to manage your time and schedule better.

Uh, maybe manage your health better and then you won't need to see your doctor.

I'm good with my doctors, thanks. I dropped the ones who can't handle the basics.

So what are you moaning about?

Doctors with poor scheduling. Try to keep up.

Why, though? Apparently it doesn't affect you.

Why are you on this thread? Are you bad at scheduling your time? Need any pointers?

Nope, but I'm curious what you do, since you seem to have so much criticism for doctors. Obviously your job is not nearly as busy nor important as a doctor's.

Only the ones with poor scheduling skills. I've had great doctors too.

So how many patients have you pissed off this week so far? Remember - it's only Tuesday.

Hon, if I were a doctor, I wouldn't have the time to keep posting on this stupid thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With all these doctors feeling totally overwhelmed (and I absolutely believe that is true!) why in the universe is the AMA so vocally opposed to "scope of practice" creep.

Get some more NPs and PAs in these offices to treat the vast majority of issues.

Because I have taken care of patients after seen by NPs and PAs. It's a crapshoot what you get -- sometimes good, sometimes verging on malpractice the things they miss. If they were well supervised, it would be more reliable, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

So hire the good ones.

More excuses.

Wait -- what percentage of those coming out of training do you think are "good" enough in that way?

Why do you want to only hire those coming out of training?

I don't know how to put this without sounding insulting, but if we are creating more new positions across the field, you need people to fill them.

In general, adding PAs is more scalable than MDs. Shorter/cheaper education.

For your practice, you don't need to hire them right out of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had an Ortho show up 40 minutes late once. I was his first appointment of the day. I saw him arrive while sitting in the waiting room. I asked him why I was kept waiting so long and he lied and said he’d been stuck with another patient. I told him that I saw him walk past me with his coat on his arm and a cup of coffee.. Never went back to him again. This was at CAO Ortho in foxhall.

If he is an ortho surgeon he might have been held up doing rounds prior to going to his practice. Some of you don't seem to understand what doctors do.

So...poor scheduling. Allocate more time for rounds.

Allocate more time from where? They can’t control if 7 new ortho patients got admitted overnight and suddenly they are rounding on 12 patients instead of 5. Or 20 instead of 5.

Start office hours later on hospital days.

It's not that hard to figure out.

Got it. So, see fewer patients overall. Sounds ideal. Hope you don’t need to see a specialist anytime soon because they’ve taken your advice and your appointment date for your brain tumor is in March 2024.

Yes, see fewer patients if you can't figure out how to manage your time and schedule better.

Uh, maybe manage your health better and then you won't need to see your doctor.

I'm good with my doctors, thanks. I dropped the ones who can't handle the basics.

So what are you moaning about?

Doctors with poor scheduling. Try to keep up.

Why, though? Apparently it doesn't affect you.

Why are you on this thread? Are you bad at scheduling your time? Need any pointers?

Nope, but I'm curious what you do, since you seem to have so much criticism for doctors. Obviously your job is not nearly as busy nor important as a doctor's.

Only the ones with poor scheduling skills. I've had great doctors too.

So how many patients have you pissed off this week so far? Remember - it's only Tuesday.

Hon, if I were a doctor, I wouldn't have the time to keep posting on this stupid thread.

Depends on how good you're able to manage your time/schedule.

[Anonymous]

^ how well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If needed, you could have reasonably come out at the 20 minute mark and asked what’s up or to be rescheduled.

We waited longer than that at our pediatric practice the other day. It was SLAMMED. Lots going on, lots of illness. Doctors and nurses still burned out and staffing shortages following COVID. You are OK.

I came out at 30 minutes and asked and was told, "He'll be in a minute.". Fifteen minutes he showed up. I had already wasted 3/4 of an hour waiting. Their burn out should not be the problem of patients. My appt.
was 9 a.m., supposedly 2nd patient. This was orthopedist so no emergencies.

What? Orthopedists have huge emergencies. Broken bone, fractured ankle. They need to squeeze these people in. Plus post-op appointments they need to schedule whether they have a spot or not.

These responses are amazing to me. Do you guys actually go to the doctor? When there is an actual emergency the office and doctor tell you. It’s their get out of jail free/make the lateness legit card. Usually it’s terrible time management on the doctor and the practice manager’s part/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised by the lack of empathy and understanding here. I feel like this is typical for drs offices. I have two family members who are young physicians and I see how insanely hard their jobs are. They work so much harder than most of us honestly (especially post pandemic when many of us are enjoying flexibility and more WFH). It has given me such empathy for my own drs. It's a systemic issue usually, and usually not the dr. There can be so many reasons for it - emergencies of other patients, patients that take forever and hold them up, or that they try really hard to give patient's a little more time than insurance allows basically.

No, it’s a terrible time management/practice issue. Doctors are not scheduled realistically and no one stops it. Scheduling realistically would be fewer $ coming in the door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ortho patients seeing their doctor in clinic are subject to any emergencies or surgeries that happened that day or the day before. (No, you’re so far from correct about orthopedic surgeons not having emergency patients hahahahah tell that to the person whose arm got amputated or the kid whose leg got crushed into 28377 tiny bone fragments in a car accident at 4am).

Emergencies are a different story. Doesn't sound like that was the case for OP's doctor.

What evidence do you have on that? She didn't even say what type of doctor. You know drs can't disclose other patient's health problems.

Lol, you are a fool. The doctor can’t say Mrs smith shattered her tibia and needed surgery. But the doctor came say, I had to perform an emergency surgery this AM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and he knew that I was upset because when he came in he didn't apologize but said, "we're doing our best.".

I replied, "45 minutes past my appointment time is your 'best'? If you are running this late, then have someone advise patient because my time is also valuable."

He didn't like this and I didn't care. I am so sick of doctors running late because of their greed in overbooking.

Like most medical practices they cancel, and charge, if patient is 15 minutes late.

He said that they were doing their best. You were rude in response. Instead, you could have opened dialog about the situation in a productive way. Or ask about their policies if you would have had to leave due to the late start. I once left when the doctor was an hour late and I didn't get charged; I was nursing and needed to get home to my infant because I hadn't pumped.

I also despise such situations, but am not rude to the doctor. If you don't like him, just go elsewhere.

We are doing our best is not apology. It is “let me off the hook” comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:There are so many reasons doc run late that have nothing to do with actual appointment times. They really are often doing their very best and skipping lunch to catch up. I’m sorry you had to wait. Someone should have let you know they were behind too. Extend compassion as we often receive the same in kind when having very human moments.

For a doctor who couldn't bring himself to apologize for keeping someone waiting, and who got upset at the idea that someone else's time might be worth something too? Compassion seems a little excessive.

So you wanted him to spend a bunch of time apologizing and getting further behind?

An apology can take less than 5 seconds.

Did you even read the OP? He said “we’re trying our best” which to many would address it. An apology that made the OP happy was not going to be less than 5 seconds.

OP back. All any doctor's office needs to do is let the patient know that doctor is running 30 minutes or more late. I think we all know there is always going to be a 15 minute wait but 45 minutes is inexcusable without the courtesy of advising the patient. "We're doing our best" is not an apology.

My day was also messed up as this made me late for two appointments. My point is that we all have busy schedules and lives. We make other appointments scheduled around medical appointments. The patient's time is also important and has been pointed out if I had been 45 minutes late, my appointment, rightfully, would, and should, have been cancelled.

"We're doing our best" is what someone says to calm someone down who is being an ahole to staff. You need to think about what your doctor has been told about your behavior while you were waiting if that's what you got.

It also sounds like you overbooked yourself and are mad at the doctor who may or may not have overbooked themselves. You don't know, going into a pediatrician's visit, whether someone ahead of you will make you late, or whether you'll be the parent of the patient who makes the next family late. So, scheduling two things right after was irresponsible. How did you apologize to those people?

All of this. Especially the bolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are so many reasons doc run late that have nothing to do with actual appointment times. They really are often doing their very best and skipping lunch to catch up. I’m sorry you had to wait. Someone should have let you know they were behind too. Extend compassion as we often receive the same in kind when having very human moments.

For a doctor who couldn't bring himself to apologize for keeping someone waiting, and who got upset at the idea that someone else's time might be worth something too? Compassion seems a little excessive.

So you wanted him to spend a bunch of time apologizing and getting further behind?

An apology can take less than 5 seconds.

Did you even read the OP? He said “we’re trying our best” which to many would address it. An apology that made the OP happy was not going to be less than 5 seconds.

OP back. All any doctor's office needs to do is let the patient know that doctor is running 30 minutes or more late. I think we all know there is always going to be a 15 minute wait but 45 minutes is inexcusable without the courtesy of advising the patient. "We're doing our best" is not an apology.

My day was also messed up as this made me late for two appointments. My point is that we all have busy schedules and lives. We make other appointments scheduled around medical appointments. The patient's time is also important and has been pointed out if I had been 45 minutes late, my appointment, rightfully, would, and should, have been cancelled.

"We're doing our best" is what someone says to calm someone down who is being an ahole to staff. You need to think about what your doctor has been told about your behavior while you were waiting if that's what you got.

It also sounds like you overbooked yourself and are mad at the doctor who may or may not have overbooked themselves. You don't know, going into a pediatrician's visit, whether someone ahead of you will make you late, or whether you'll be the parent of the patient who makes the next family late. So, scheduling two things right after was irresponsible. How did you apologize to those people?

All of this. Especially the bolded.

“I am sorry we kept you waiting. We’ll work on getting more accurate timing to patients.” That’s an apology. Do you see the difference?