Anonymous wrote:Doctors have reasons they are late, and so do patients. You should not assume yours are valid and the patient’s are not.

At least have your office call people in advance when you know you are running way late. And for God’s sake apologize to those who came on time and have been waiting for a half hour or more . And if you are going to charge those who are delayed, you need to pay your waiting patients when you are delayed. You are really not the only busy, important person in this equation, whose time has value.

You should go to 14:02 poster's doctors. I hear they are all just fine and run on time.

Hey 14:02, wanna help someone out? What's that rec?

Anonymous wrote:Doctors have reasons they are late, and so do patients. You should not assume yours are valid and the patient’s are not.

At least have your office call people in advance when you know you are running way late. And for God’s sake apologize to those who came on time and have been waiting for a half hour or more . And if you are going to charge those who are delayed, you need to pay your waiting patients when you are delayed. You are really not the only busy, important person in this equation, whose time has value.

Do you want an apology, or do you want an explanation?

Doctor's reasons for being late are usually other patients, not their own reason. Are the other patients not as valid as you?

Anonymous wrote:Doctors have reasons they are late, and so do patients. You should not assume yours are valid and the patient’s are not.

At least have your office call people in advance when you know you are running way late. And for God’s sake apologize to those who came on time and have been waiting for a half hour or more . And if you are going to charge those who are delayed, you need to pay your waiting patients when you are delayed. You are really not the only busy, important person in this equation, whose time has value.

The charge is there as a deterrent. JFC people are dumb.

If this is the level of intelligence you can bring to this problem, I can assure you your time is not that valuable. I guess you won’t be buying concierge medicine to avoid wasting your highly valuable time.

Doctors have reasons they are late, and so do patients. You should not assume yours are valid and the patient’s are not.

At least have your office call people in advance when you know you are running way late. And for God’s sake apologize to those who came on time and have been waiting for a half hour or more . And if you are going to charge those who are delayed, you need to pay your waiting patients when you are delayed. You are really not the only busy, important person in this equation, whose time has value.

Anonymous wrote:Our US society is setup to cater to the wealthy. Most Doctor’s offices don’t offer hours outside of normal Mon-Fri 9-4 business hours. This makes it very hard for the worker-bees in our society who get very limited time off to take themselves and their family (young kids and elders) to doctor appointments.

I’m 55 and I’ve had the same chronic and painful undiagnosed medical mystery since adolescence. No, I am not making this up. I’ve spent so much time and money trying to get a diagnosis. It sucks. I gave up on all doctor’s ability to diagnose me. I can’t understand doctors rolling their eyes on an acute illness that will likely go away in its own, but should take someone seriously when it is obviously not an acute illness!

It's almost like if there were public health funded, salaried positions with competitive pay that hired people for weekends and after hours, then better care in this country could be facilitated. That wouldn't be capitalism.

Would the people who have excellent doctors working in well-run clinics be willing to share the names here, so that all of the people who can't find care could flock to them? That would be great for everyone.

It's also not constant, but on the days it happens, everyone notices. If a someone gets very behind only 5%, or 3%, or even 20% of the days, someone who's only there 2 times a year is likely to miss it.

Our US society is setup to cater to the wealthy. Most Doctor’s offices don’t offer hours outside of normal Mon-Fri 9-4 business hours. This makes it very hard for the worker-bees in our society who get very limited time off to take themselves and their family (young kids and elders) to doctor appointments.

I’m 55 and I’ve had the same chronic and painful undiagnosed medical mystery since adolescence. No, I am not making this up. I’ve spent so much time and money trying to get a diagnosis. It sucks. I gave up on all doctor’s ability to diagnose me. I can’t understand doctors rolling their eyes on an acute illness that will likely go away in its own, but should take someone seriously when it is obviously not an acute illness!

Anonymous wrote:I very rarely wait and we have mediocre insurance, go to groups accepting most insurance. I've only waited for specialists, and even then it's been rare. They are usually very on time, within 15 mins at most. So it seems like a lot of doctors know how to deal with this.

One wonders why everyone who is so unhappy about their doctors aren't flocking to your doctors. Do you think all those people are fools?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hit reply too fast. Do you see how this makes zero sense? You want them to know better than you but you don’t want to do what they tell you to do.

Also if they take all those phone calls they’ll never have time to actually see patients in person and also they won’t get paid. Sucks but true. Your quick phone call, multiplied by 15, plus the documentation required for it, would take up hours.

There's A LOT of real estate between "makes $50k a year" and "makes $600k a year". Doctors could stop over-scheduling, spend more time with patients, take phone calls, work on bedside manner and still make what any American would consider a lavish sum. Nobody is asking them to impoverish themselves, just maybe make a couple thou less a day.

If a doctor actually can control his own patient schedule- and let’s say he sees 3 patients per hour at 20min per patient and then has an hour at the end of the day to answer calls. And a lunch 30min. That’s 21 patients a day. Billed at primary care sick visit rates to insurance. Now he has to pay his receptionist and his two medical assistants. He has to pay his billing lady and his office manager (unless he manages his own office in which case give him an additional patient free hour per day to do administrative work , so, that’s down to 18 patients a day). Now he doesn’t double book patients either. So imagine 3 patients a day no show. You’re down to 15 a day. Now he also has to pay rent , and malpractice insurance. Can you guess how much he’d take home at the end of the day? I’ll clue you in. Not enough to stay in business.

Do you take us as fools? This is why doctors have shared office with shared receptionist. No doctor has dedicated staff just for themselves.

DP. That's for an individual practice, as many concierge practices are. That's why they charge fees, though. Instead, you can go with shared overhead expenses to bring down cost, but you lose autonomy. You are no longer totally in charge of your own schedule.

I very rarely wait and we have mediocre insurance, go to groups accepting most insurance. I've only waited for specialists, and even then it's been rare. They are usually very on time, within 15 mins at most. So it seems like a lot of doctors know how to deal with this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hit reply too fast. Do you see how this makes zero sense? You want them to know better than you but you don’t want to do what they tell you to do.

Also if they take all those phone calls they’ll never have time to actually see patients in person and also they won’t get paid. Sucks but true. Your quick phone call, multiplied by 15, plus the documentation required for it, would take up hours.

There's A LOT of real estate between "makes $50k a year" and "makes $600k a year". Doctors could stop over-scheduling, spend more time with patients, take phone calls, work on bedside manner and still make what any American would consider a lavish sum. Nobody is asking them to impoverish themselves, just maybe make a couple thou less a day.

If a doctor actually can control his own patient schedule- and let’s say he sees 3 patients per hour at 20min per patient and then has an hour at the end of the day to answer calls. And a lunch 30min. That’s 21 patients a day. Billed at primary care sick visit rates to insurance. Now he has to pay his receptionist and his two medical assistants. He has to pay his billing lady and his office manager (unless he manages his own office in which case give him an additional patient free hour per day to do administrative work , so, that’s down to 18 patients a day). Now he doesn’t double book patients either. So imagine 3 patients a day no show. You’re down to 15 a day. Now he also has to pay rent , and malpractice insurance. Can you guess how much he’d take home at the end of the day? I’ll clue you in. Not enough to stay in business.

Do you take us as fools? This is why doctors have shared office with shared receptionist. No doctor has dedicated staff just for themselves.

^^PS: Note this is from a different doc than the one above it, and yet boils down to the same answer.

Unfortunately, the doctor is only in charge of their time, not the other 15 patients booked that morning -- 3 would be late (you can turn them away, absolutely, even though they are pissed about it), 3 will bring up new issues at the very end that need more time to rule out something like a heart attack or stroke, 2 will be people both on time who are only there for the exact problems that they booked, 1 will have done their research and want to run a powerpoint presentation (you can dismiss them from your practice, absolutely, but that's probably not fair, and they will start a thread on dcum, which is fine but might eventually give Jeff a hernia), 1 will be someone going deaf who didn't bring their hearing aids, 3 will be patients who have things to talk about that they don't mention until after the appointment is started but that you can compress time for and get it done, and 2 will be people that bring up other things that are non-urgent and can be dealt with by giving up some of your free time after work.

So don't shrug your shoulders, doc, and say "well, geez, it happens!" You know what to do. We all know the answer by now, and once you take that step, you can choose the patients you can best work with and book enough time for them, so that you know you can stay on time. You're happier, and your patients are happier.

It's the answer to most of the problems in the thread, and it's why it's happening all over in the US.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to stop over scheduling and understand that everyone’s time is valuable, not just theirs. Stop telling me you’ll cancel my appointment if I’m 15 minutes late and then make me wait for 30 minutes minimum when I’m on time.

Sounds like your time is so valuable you have the resources to go out into the marketplace to pay for a higher level of service. You should probably do that.

I’m the meantime, sit down with a piece of paper and game out the cascading effect of a few people being “15 minutes.”

Of course you're right - it's only people who pay for a higher level of service who should expect to be seen at the time of their appointment. Punctuality isn't the baseline, it's a extra.

Give me a break.

The point the PP was making, what seems to have been lost on you, is that it is hypocritical to insist that patients be on time while simultaneously routinely being late yourself. And then shrugging your shoulders and saying, "Well, geez, it happens! What was I to do?"

Oh yes, the point was so elaborate.

Look, I am sorry you have difficulty with space time continuums and can't figure out that patients are habitually and routinely late. I am sorry you also cannot figure out the basics of general practice and how scheduling works.

The doctor in the scenario you are painting is late 99.9% of the time because some person or series of persons who can't be bothered to 1) show up on time, 2) not bring up unrelated things during an appointment, 3) some combination of 1 and 2, 4) a big stack of their own research. The examples go on and on and on.

If you thinking waiting in the US is bad, give a nationalized health care system a whirl in a country of similar complexity as ours. You know, where healthcare "is a right." I am confident you won't like the outcome. Just like you would not like the treatment options if whatever disease you have is very likely to be terminal.

Anonymous wrote:PS: I'm thinking that maybe doctor appointments -- unlike those with bankers or lawyers -- are much more likely to have unexpected things come up that need to be dealt with because of that acuity.

I mean, I'm sure bankers and lawyers deal with unexpected things, but probably not like you are describing. You know, things that can't be put off.

NP, but I’ll add on that doctors, lawyers, and financial workers all have heightened duties of care with oversight from licensing boards. This goes beyond what a normal business requires (e.g. you’re not just talking about meeting some basic regulations to run a coffee shop). All of these professions also require insurance because of the high stakes of screwing up someone’s life.

Further, doctors must take a Hippocratic Oath. This is beyond a normal “business” obligation. Please do not go into medicine with the expectation of treating your patients like McDonald’s customers.