I hate doctors’ waiting rooms—the out-of-date magazines, the neutral wall colors, the crowds of sick people—and I’ve been in a lot of waiting rooms lately. In the last 60 days, I’ve seen the general practitioner, endocrinologist, weight-loss doctor, dermatologist, and dentist. I’ve also given blood (twice) and been to several labs.
What I really hate about waiting rooms is the waiting. I’m not naming names, but certain members of my medical team do not make their scheduled appointments—ever.
With one physician, a quick checkup can take up two to three hours—and all but five minutes is waiting. This doctor actually has three waiting rooms. You can estimate how soon you’ll see him by your progression through the rooms. At each stage a nurse takes some information, and you move along to the next waiting room.
Movement does not necessarily mean progress: The closer you get to the patient room (where there’s another wait, of course), the older the magazines get.
I would expect this kind of treatment if I dropped in, but these appointments are often made weeks and months in advance.
Occasionally, the scheduling systems work. Consider my appointment Monday morning with the dermatologist, my first visit. I showed up for the 7 a.m. appointment on time, got through all the paperwork, and saw the physician by 7:30 a.m. That passes for excellent in my book.
I usually have the same experience with my dentist, who also schedules early morning appointments. I don’t even know how old the magazines are in his office because I usually walk right to the chair.
Most of the time, I’m just happy if I see a doctor within an hour of my scheduled appointment. Over the years of visiting so many waiting rooms, I’ve learned a few tricks:
• Scout out the waiting room. The bigger the waiting room, the more inefficient or overbooked the doctor (for practices, divide the number of chairs by the number of doctors). Make sure there’s only one room.
• Book the earliest morning appointment possible. It usually takes doctors a few appointments to get behind schedule.
• Ask the scheduler to book you on the lightest day of the week.
• Avoid school holidays if your doctor or dentists sees kids.
• Bring your own magazine.
Of course, it helps if you’re on time. Honest confession time: I missed an appointment last week. Gotta run. Need to email my weight-loss doctor with an apology.
Comments (12)
I would add that it’s good to make sure that you block out at least an extra hour beyond the scheduled appointment time, especially if you are in meetings and need to be back in the office later in the day. Also, avoid Mondays. That’s when there’s a lot of drop-in traffic from pent-up demand over the weekend. This has been my experience with pediatrics especially. Lastly, see if you can avoid an in-person visit by doing a phone or email consultation. This prevents about 50 percent of my trips.
Excellent advice! I’ve been doing a lot of visits via email, esp. on routine things like medication adjustments. When you’re just waiting for an email, it’s not so crazy.
More tips and tricks
Ask for somewhere to lie down especially if you really feel rough. Don’t expect them to read your mind, the time passes quicker, you can doze off if the wait is half an hour or more, and they hurry you along just because they’re thinking it might be really bad…
Take some men’s magazines, most magazines are for females.There is always a bored guy who is getting increasingly edgy and can’t be fobbed off by Housekeeping monthly (May 05) and the stress spreads out to the other patients.
Don’t be afraid to ask for phone consultations instead, unless you really need face to face - your dr often prefers it and you can stay in bed. No stress and no other sickos to infect you. Ask for phone rather than visit and you’ll more likely get a visit but the dr feels less pressured.
Woo that receptionist! Take a small chocolate, every time. Learn their name,look them in the eye and smile, dammit! Really you’d be surprised but they will often tip you off about best and worst times, whether its best to phone first, or even sneak you in when they’re not supposed to.
Do a first glance check for the infectious person and sit at opposite end of room. Wash your hands like crazy as soon as you leave.
Take a blanket if you like but make sure it’s very clean.
P.S Receptionists seem to follow the “good cop, bad cop” model - find your good cop with the can-do attitude and remember what days they work.
Take a notebook and spend the time writing down every symptom and question you have, make it businesslike as possible. When you’re feeling ill you forget stuff and your dr gets enough vague people as it is.
Can anyone tell me where I can report a doctor who is always late to work?
I have to go to a doctor for an annual physical for the company I work for. He is never on time. In fact this morning I had a 9:00 am appt. and the staff said the doctor never shows up until 10:30 or 11:00 am. This explains why he is running behind on all of his appointments for the rest of the day. It did no good to complain to the company I work for. They said that is the doctor they have chosen for the physicals. He also handles other companies and I assume he thinks he can do what he wants to.
There must be someone to complain to.
Why have your staff make an early morning appt. if you don’t show up until mid-morning?
Last time, my appointment was at 4:00 and didn’t get into the stupid little room until 5:30 and then another 15 minutes before I saw him. I was peeved and told the nurse this only to be told that yelling at her and being sarcastic won’t help.Not even a hasty half hearted apology I could recall Say what you will about scheduling an earlie time but I work during the day and can’t just drop everything at my job. It shouldn’t matter what time your appointment is they should run on time as best they can. 15 minutes late is understandable and even up to 30 minutes if they at least are willing to try to appease me. My dentist almost always runs on time and apologizes up and down if he is only running 5 minutes late. My doctor always gives the same reasons as that everyone wants to talk to him. At least my doctor is nice about it when I tell him how digusted I am about his running late but it’s after the fact everytime. If there was a safe and practical way I could renew my blood pressure medication without having to deal with this garbage every 6 months I would do so. But, I guess paying customers are to be seen and never heard at least at my doctors office.
From the CNN.com article “Waiting for the doctor … and waiting, and waiting”: Kelley’s pet peeve: Drug reps who waltz into the doctor’s office when he’s been waiting for two hours. “They just wave at the receptionist and walk right in. And you can always spot a drug rep because they’re dragging luggage behind them and they’re always cute,” Kelley says. “They can see the doctor whenever they want. How’d they get the keys to the kingdom?”
Mr. Kelley, I don’t know if you realize the function of a drug rep or not, but they are the ones who bring samples of drugs for patients to try. Without drug reps, patients would be forced to pay potentially high copays for drugs that may or may not work for them. Take the overactive bladder drug class for example: there are currently several products on the market, all different compounds, and not all of them work for every patient. Liken it to an over-the-counter pain medication: for some people Tylenol works better than Aleve. By utilizing samples, a patient gets to see whether a drug will be ideal for them, in terms of efficacy and safety, before having to pay for a prescription.
Additionally, reps might just wave to the receptionist and walk to the back, but there are strict rules for rep visits that are imposed by the doctor’s office. If a doctor is busy, he/she will not chat with reps; instead he/she quickly provide their signature in exchange for samples (a three-second theft of a physician’s time required by law). Doctors do not make money by talking to a drug rep, they make money by seeing patients; reps are a necessary nuisance they prefer to avoid.
As a drug rep myself, you need to know that I routinely spend an hour or more simply waiting for that three-second signature (and I do this in several offices, several times per day). Many offices do not see reps at all; instead we present our card with our drugs listed on it, the receptionist checks to see if they need samples, and if they do, the doctor will come to the reception desk between patients and sign for samples. The reason a doctor dares to venture into the waiting area to sign? It is required by law that a drug rep witnesses a doctor’s signature so as to avoid falsification, since only a licensed practitioner can sign for drug samples. Nurses and medical assistants cannot.
Also, I respect a physician’s time. If he/she is too busy to take the time for the three-second signature, I ask the receptionist for a better time to return. Understand that my job is to provide information to the doctor about my products (clinical studies, etc.) in the hopes that he/she will utilize my products, but this is never, ever at the expense of the patient. Perpetuating the perception that drug reps are simply running around taking up so much time is part of the reason that the pharmaceutical industry has a poor reputation. Since you spend quite a lot of time in doctors’ offices, take a look around you next time. You will likely notice strict policies posted regarding drug rep visits.
Why is it that people will wait an hour for a table at TGI Fridays, but they wont wait to see their doctor? I think its just another example of how we Americans have our priorities all messed up. Health is important, and if we have to wait a little while to be seen then so be it. Maybe you are waiting because this doctor is great and everyone is trying to get in.
I spent much of my life working in emergency rooms as well as clinics. When I worked in the “emergency room” (aka convenance clinic) It was always my practice to advise patients when there would be a long wait and in the case that it was not a true urgent care situation, I would offer to find a doctor to make an appointment with. Decent people would appreciate knowing up front. Others didn’t seem to want to believe me and would come up 15 minutes later asking what was taking so long to get them in.
In working in a primary care clinic and pediatric clinic I would advise people if there was a delay and give them an option to run out and come back without penalty or reschdule.
Now when I go to see my current doctor, his staff will not advise if he is late, even if you ask. If you are not in the office when your name is called then you are marked as missing the appointment and you lose it.
As for advise on when to schedule, I have scheduled the first appoint of the day which is 8:00. I arrived more than the required 15 miuntes early for paperwork and vitals. When I arrived the door was locked. At 8:10 I noticed 2 women enter through the back door. They opened up the front door at 8:20. By then there were several patients already waiting. They sneered when I commented that it was going to be a rough day already starting out behind. A nurse brought me back for history and vitals at 8:30. The doctor showed up at 9:15. He did not get called into the hospital that night, but did not offer why he was already late.
The good news with this doctor though, is that he is good about giving refills for medicines without me having to go into his office. Since I have a medical background and usually know what I need, I can call up and he will refill the same day. This saves me from having to show up. I would not even mind paying for the co-pay for these phone refills, but he hasn’t charged yet.
Bottom line:
Doctors don’t care - they are too important.
Staffs don’t care - you are not a person, you are more work.
AMA doesn’t care - they really don’t want to police their doctors.
So if your doctor is late then fire him, let him know he is fired and why (he probably will not care) and find a doctor that treats you with respect. Incidentally, if he doesn’t respect you enough to be on time, then will he respect you enough to care that he diagnosis correctly and prescribes the correct medicine?
Call *before* your appointment and ask if the Doctor is running behind and if so by about how many minutes. Let them know you can’t be away from (work/home/etc.) more than one hour and you will adjust your arrival time accordingly. Also, you might suggest they try a better scheduling system. My company produces scheduling software solutions and we sell a lot to the medical community.
I recently saw this Dr.for the first time. The waiting room was full and nowhere to sit. I stood for one hour and forty five minutes before going into the examining room, where I waited another hour. The Dr. asked me my name three times and also questions that I had filled out on a questioner. I finally had to ask him to open my folder. I saw him fifteen minutes and will never again.
It’s interesting to read these posts. I work in Medicine, I am Physician Assistant. I see my own patient case schedule. It trully amazes me how out of touch people are with healthcare. Before you go and start blasting medical offices you should get informed. First, not all doctors/PAs are ambivalent about their patients. Second, whether you like it or not, insurance companies have made medicine a business. To go school to be an MD/DO it takes at nearly a minimu 100,000 dollars. Yes, that is a mortage. To be a PA it takes at a minimum, state tuition nearly 25,000. Medical care is the only business in this country that has rising costs and decreasing incomes. We all have staff that require a salary and benefits, we have malpractice insurance, we have to go to CME courses to udate our knowledge, that is not cheap. But, we can not pass these costs on to patients because we are required to accept contract limits to reimbursement from insurance companies then are required to fill out form after form just to get medical treatment. Patients often have unrealistic expectations. If you come to phsysician’s office have one complaint to discuss, don’t drop “oh by the way can we talk about this too” comment, because there is another patient after you. The system is broken and the people want to take it out on the providers. Look around, medical providers are dwindling. Why? Too much red tape, forced to see too many patients just to pay the bills. Then patient ignorance over the system. Here’s a test. Call around your area and ask each Primary care provider what the wait time is to get an appointment, what insurances they take and don’t take you might be surprised. To many patients not enough providers and providers getting burned out.