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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They book spots every 15-30 minutes.  They don't rush people out after their time is up.   Add in phone calls and questions from other staff, it's easy to get backed up.   And once that sTarts, it's all over unless they take a break in the afternoon to catch up.   [/quote]

They DOUBLE BOOK appts every 15 mins. Once I waited at an OBGYNs office and three of the women also waiting all had the same appt time as me or within 20 mins.[/quote]

They need to do this because there are often no shows or people running late that will back up the daily schedule.  Down time with no patients means the office is losing money as they are still paying all the staff to be there.  Insurances are cutting back what they pay for procedures and appointments and expenses are going up.  So doctors start by trying to make sure that they work the entire day and don't have downtime when a patient flakes out on them.

This in addition to the other hightlighted issues that they have to take emergency calls and squeeze them in, plus patients that take longer than the scheduled time due to complications or questions.  A few weeks ago, we went to the pediatrician because my son had swallowed a penny two days before and was complaining of stomach pains.  The doctor looked him over and then sent us to get an X-ray (another office in the same complex) and then we had to come back and see her again.  I guarantee you that the time for the second visit was not accounted for in the schedule and there were probably other patients behind us that got backed up.  Should she have not reviewed the Xrays?  Not spoken to us again afterwards to assure us that the penny was passing?  Or should the next patients get backed up 15 minutes.  Since we were early (around 8:30), this could have had cascading issues for the rest of the day.

And while I can understand those who say that they will just switch to another practice, that doesn't always work.  In our case, we often have to travel out of town for a team of specialists.  We travel a long distance to get the most accomplished doctors in my wife's condition, we have no option to switch to other practitioners if we want the best in the field.  Yes, these doctors are very overbooked, but they are also very in demand as the excellent doctors that they are.  For us, it's worth the wait to see the best.[/quote]

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