OT appointment canceled last minute. Help me not be annoyed.

[Anonymous]

My son’s first OT appointment was canceled this morning at 8. The appointment was scheduled for 9. Between referrals and insurance and their own intake process, it took me a month to get this appointment. I’m so irritated but obviously want to be super nice to them bc I want it to be a positive experience. Here’s the email-

“Good morning,
Unfortunately, we will need to reschedule Larlo’s evaluation appointment to another day this week because our OT had an emergency this morning and another OT whom we typically get coverage from is unavailable. I am so sorry for this inconvenience and will give you a call by the end of the day today once we've been able to confirm when she will be back in.”

I’m annoyed because it is so last minute and by email (fortunately I check email a lot) and also a bit unnerving that the whole thing is on a shoe string that seems to collapse if one person is out. I understand emergencies happen, but the email makes them sound really unorganized. Not to mention this week is really tight work wise and the reschedule will inevitably suck for my schedule. Anyway please tell me to get over it. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I know it sucks but I imagine it was something serious if they had to reschedule. My kids' dentist had to reschedule us a few months ago because his wife went into labor early! I didn't mind, I understood things happen, but apparently a lot of patients gave the scheduler grief over it. Sorry that happened and I hope they get you in soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son’s first OT appointment was canceled this morning at 8. The appointment was scheduled for 9. Between referrals and insurance and their own intake process, it took me a month to get this appointment. I’m so irritated but obviously want to be super nice to them bc I want it to be a positive experience. Here’s the email-

“Good morning,
Unfortunately, we will need to reschedule Larlo’s evaluation appointment to another day this week because our OT had an emergency this morning and another OT whom we typically get coverage from is unavailable. I am so sorry for this inconvenience and will give you a call by the end of the day today once we've been able to confirm when she will be back in.”

I’m annoyed because it is so last minute and by email (fortunately I check email a lot) and also a bit unnerving that the whole thing is on a shoe string that seems to collapse if one person is out. I understand emergencies happen, but the email makes them sound really unorganized. Not to mention this week is really tight work wise and the reschedule will inevitably suck for my schedule. Anyway please tell me to get over it. Thanks.

There. The bolded part is all you should need if you are a decent human being. Now that you’ve spared a thought for the poor OT, you will get over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son’s first OT appointment was canceled this morning at 8. The appointment was scheduled for 9. Between referrals and insurance and their own intake process, it took me a month to get this appointment. I’m so irritated but obviously want to be super nice to them bc I want it to be a positive experience. Here’s the email-

“Good morning,
Unfortunately, we will need to reschedule Larlo’s evaluation appointment to another day this week because our OT had an emergency this morning and another OT whom we typically get coverage from is unavailable. I am so sorry for this inconvenience and will give you a call by the end of the day today once we've been able to confirm when she will be back in.”

I’m annoyed because it is so last minute and by email (fortunately I check email a lot) and also a bit unnerving that the whole thing is on a shoe string that seems to collapse if one person is out. I understand emergencies happen, but the email makes them sound really unorganized. Not to mention this week is really tight work wise and the reschedule will inevitably suck for my schedule. Anyway please tell me to get over it. Thanks.

There. The bolded part is all you should need if you are a decent human being. Now that you’ve spared a thought for the poor OT, you will get over it.

Haha thanks I agree.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has emergencies.

[Anonymous]

It sucks, but these things happen. Sounds like they will get you in this week still, so there's that?

Reminds me that my dentist's office called me the morning of an appointment to cancel due to knee surgery recovery. Promising to call back to reschedule - two months ago and still no call! I was trying to break up w/ the practice anyhow, so no big loss.

[Anonymous]

Your OT is a person. I am a SP and had to cancel an IEP appointment in May because of kidney stones. The mom wrote me a terribly angry email saying she has waited months and how disappointed she was in me and our practice. It brought me to tears when I read it 25 minutes out of surgery later that day. The truth is I really value all my clients and their time.and their need for their children's assessments but I'm still a person with the occasional life emergency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your OT is a person. I am a SP and had to cancel an IEP appointment in May because of kidney stones. The mom wrote me a terribly angry email saying she has waited months and how disappointed she was in me and our practice. It brought me to tears when I read it 25 minutes out of surgery later that day. The truth is I really value all my clients and their time.and their need for their children's assessments but I'm still a person with the occasional life emergency.

Ouch. I think it's partly that people don't know what you mean by "emergency." It could be like, I missed my flight coming back from vacation (what a doctor did after I had waited months for an appointment), which to me, falls into the category of bad planning rather than emergency or an actual personal or family emergency.

[Anonymous]

But OP's demand that the practice should have some kind of supports in place to accommodate emergencies is ridiculous. What would the supports be? The only thing i can think of is having a person be on full time call. That seems a little ridiculous - because presumably you'd need to pay them a full time salary for the 8 times a year the people in your practice had emergencies. I suppose there could be some kind of system where a roving OT makes themselves available for all the small OT practice emergencies in the region. But that would be terrible -- what value would it be to see some random OT who doesn't know your kid for a single appointment? 99% of parents would rather just get the cancellation, save the $100, and have a surprise free hour during their week (see the previous thread on the parents who get excited when their kids' therapies get last minute cancelled). The only reason OP is annoyed is because it's the first appointment. OP - get over yourself and use an ounce of common sense to work through this.

[Anonymous]

The test of whether it's a well-run practice is whether they keep their word and get back to you by the end of the day as promised.

[Anonymous]

YOu put a lot of emotional weight into the appointment because its the first one If OT becomes a regular thing for you you will see that this is not a big deal and that emergencies do happen You might even be happy when appointments get cancelled as veteran sn parents are Now once we were working with a completely flakey Ot who would only give e one week's notice for weeks-long planned vacations like a trip to Hawaii Hello? You couldn't have told me at the start of the month? You decided to got Hawaii for three weeks on a whim? Now thats annoying

[Anonymous]

They even TOLD YOU that they had an extra person, who today happened to not be available. Jesus.

[Anonymous]

As an SLP I know how parents work their schedules around evaluations so I do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't get cancelled. This includes getting an emergency babysitter that cost more than I was paid when my child was sick. That being said, in the 10 years I have I been practicing I had to cancel one evaluation last minute when I was struck with some kind of stomach virus that knocked me off my feet. The woman sent me the nastiest email I have ever received. I literally couldn't move off the bathroom floor. They obviously tried to get it covered and couldn't OP. The OT is a person not a robot, please understand that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an SLP I know how parents work their schedules around evaluations so I do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't get cancelled. This includes getting an emergency babysitter that cost more than I was paid when my child was sick. That being said, in the 10 years I have I been practicing I had to cancel one evaluation last minute when I was struck with some kind of stomach virus that knocked me off my feet. The woman sent me the nastiest email I have ever received. I literally couldn't move off the bathroom floor. They obviously tried to get it covered and couldn't OP. The OT is a person not a robot, please understand that.

I'd rather you cancel/reschedule and be with you sick kid than bring your germs to us and us risk getting sick. Our SLP only canceled a few times and honestly, I liked the break. Once she had us see someone else who is highly liked and neither my son or I liked. I loved she was so flexible with us that I had no issue any time she canceled, including when she really got sick and the office never called us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The test of whether it's a well-run practice is whether they keep their word and get back to you by the end of the day as promised.

Yes, and whether they cancel again. We had a child psychologist once who cancelled 2 out of 4 appointments with us because her "daughter was sick". Not like with cancer, but just sick so she couldn't go to day care. The psychologist acted like we should be totally understanding, but by the second cancelled appointment we were done. We both work in professions where we see clients and not only had we bent over backwards to arrange our schedules so we could both meet with her, we had back up care planned for our kids. The next psychologist we saw was much better anyway.