Jeepers! That’s a disorganized office. I’d be so surly I’m sure I’d mention it to the doctor and probably write a letter to the practice administrator. I did that once with my gp, told them to call from an unknown number to try and speak to a live person. It’s much improved now.
Time is money and I don’t have it to waste on someone who believes their time is more important than mine.
We had to wait 3+ hours once when doing a follow-up with the doctor who did some surgery for my D. I was pissed but it would’ve been more of a pain to leave and come back another time and we were also stuck because it was a post-surgical follow-up.
With some of my previous physicians, I’ve had to wait for an extended period - but never that long. While I had to wait, I knew that they were likely accommodating patients who truly needed to be seen that day and weren’t previously scheduled. While inconvenient at the time, I also knew if I called for a same day appointment, they’d work me in, likely inconveniencing others. I have a new physician who is very popular - and I’m very glad I got in on the ground floor with him, because he’s referring new patients to the partner he had to hire. Every time I see him it’s truly a 30 minute appointment, and yes, sometimes I do have to wait. I guess ask yourself if it’s worth it.
I called out for pizza and had it delivered to our GP waiting room once.
“o minimize my wait times I try to schedule all my appointments for right after the offices lunch hour. That way I am usually the first to be seen. 1pm is the typical time I schedule for.”
Lunch hour? What kind of slacker doctors are taking an hour for lunch? Or even a half hour? That’s crazy. Take 5 -10 mins to eat at your desk like the rest of the professional world and get back to work.
And I get the front office staff are hourly and they have to be given lunch breaks, but leaving the front office unstaffed for an hour? Again, that’s crazy. Can’t they stagger in shifts so there is always a person to do check-in?
Sorry, lunchtime should be “invisible” to the patient. What you’re describing is just poor, lazy office management and lack of work ethic IMO.
I knew a young doctor who told me he was very frustrated that his office manager was triple booking him (scheduling three patients for the same appointment). Naturally, the patients were ticked off by the time he got to them. I told him, “well, tell them to STOP DOING THAT.” He was the newest physician and was told this was the policy of his group.
A couple of years after I quit hospital nursing, I heard that he left that practice for another one. I wondered if that (and wondered if there were other practices designed to maximize profits at the expense of patients) played into his decision.
It’s a pretty large practice - about 10 doctors and they don’t schedule any appointments between 12-1. Many of my doctor’s practices do the same thing. I have no problem with it. They also seems to do pretty well so I don’t think any of their patients have a problem with it either.
I could check in early - there are 3 check in people - but since I can’t be seen until my appt time why would I?
The nurses are at lunch, too.
One hour is too long. If that happened twice, I’d be out.
Once can be an emergency. Routinely is just a big screw-you to the patients.
This is one of my pet peeves and I don’t deal well with it. Mostly because I am very conscious of other people’s time. Having said that, the work of a doctor sometimes does involve emergencies or tending to people who might need his/her attention more than you do at that moment. So I call the my doctor’s office about 15 minutes before I leave for the appointment. I tell them my scheduled time and ask if he is running on time. Then I adjust my schedule according to what the receptionist tells me.
I have had the same GP for 15 years and the admin staff are used to me at his point. The last time I forgot to call and they called me saying he was running a half hour off schedule.
Your final wait time was outrageous, unless he was in the midst of a tough birth. Even then, you should have been warned and asked to reschedule. You should have been warned before you ever arrived if something was up.
When I was pregnant with my first daughter, the wait times to see the ob/gyn were always ridiculously long.
Once a doctor was called away to do a delivery and it was Standing Room Only for all of us waiting for our prenatal check ups.
I eventually learned that the practice scheduled prenatal check ups at 10 minute intervals. Obviously this was a cash machine with the expectation that the patients would suck it up.
I used a different practice for my second daughter.
I can also recall a situation where I was working and had to pick up my daughter to take her to the pediatrician. I was running late. I missed the appointment by 20 minutes and they required me to reschedule.
It drives me crazy that health insurance is so expensive and health providers seem indifferent to providing a “good value for the money.”
Well, I’m biased here, but I think that’s just laziness to close an office from 12-1. Unless the doctors are using that time to call their patients individually with follow ups. My H would laugh at the idea of having a lunch break. He scarfs down a banana or a yogurt in between patients. Because he is there to serve them. Not the other way around.
It’s the same laziness of having office hours from 9-5 and not having evening or weekend hours to accommodate working people.
No wonder so many doctors complain they don’t make as much money as they’d like. They’re not hustling.
My internist’s office calls me if the physician is running late and advises me on a later arrival time or gives the option of rescheduling. If I wait 10 - 15 minutes past the appointment time (this rarely happens), the MD comes in and sincerely apologizes.
DH signed in for a Saturday appointment once at the same office when I was along. Things didn’t seem as professional as weekdays. After waiting 15 minutes past his appointment time, I convinced him it was time to check at the desk. Sure enough, the receptionist had somehow not checked off his name and he wasn’t called - even though we were sitting just feet from the receptionist in full view.
I see several specialists throughout the year, dermatologist, OBGYN, opthamologist, etc, etc. I’ve never waited even as long as 30 minutes. That much over an hour is totally unacceptable. I would raise it with the MDs, not the office staff. It’s possible that the MDs don’t know about the office inefficiencies. I don’t know about your area, but the doctors around me are not looking to loose patients over this type of irritation and would listen to a politely expressed complaint.
I got a call once from my kid’s orthodontist thanking me after I complained about a 45 minute wait. He hadn’t realized how out of control the appointment scheduling had gotten and they changed policies.
Most of my doctors have lunch or at least a period of time where they don’t book appointments. My dentist doesn’t even have a person on the phone at lunch. It’s a small office. They also don’t see patients on Friday, which is common for dentists here.
Plenty of professionals take lunch breaks. I don’t care if my doctor takes lunch. They don’t need to prove anything to me by working long hours. As long as they have hours that are convenient to me and respect my time I’m cool. I did rule out an orthodontist who was recommended when I saw that his latest appointment was 3:30 and he had “summer hours” that were even more limited.
@Pizzagirl, my OBGYN’s office - Evanston and other north 'burb locations - closes from 12 to 1. I find it quite irritating as they don’t even answer calls. Kudos to your Hubby!
This is a single practice office that I’m talking about. One doctor and ~ 15 staffers (though not all at once of course).
I went to an oral surgeon who started procedures at 5:30 am. That was extremely respectful of my time. Both times I was done by 7 am and could move on with my day. I thought it was very smart of him.
I fired my cardiologist after waiting 1 hours, then 2 hours but the last was 4 hours! In addition, my file had NONE of the testing that was performed on me by their office and NO notes about my allergies and risk for anaphylaxis and that one of the partners talked with me about this risk for 45 minutes! This cardiologist is the owner of a hugely successful cardiologist practice. I told both my internist and Pulmonologist who referred me that that office will kill someone soon with their sloppy office practices and I’ll never step foot in their offices again.
One hour is too long. I don’t make patients (I’m a pediatrician) wait more than ten or fifteen minutes; if I do it’s because I’ve gotten behind because a kid is really sick and the ten-minute ‘sick visit’ has turned into an hour of labs, xray and/or hospital admission. I’m very apologetic to patients if they wait. People are usually very gracious if I’ve apologized (and I mean that apology-- their time is as valuable as mine–and rougher, if they’ve got antsy toddlers or crying babies). In fact our staff often hears that patients wish they waited a little more-- because the kids want to play in the playhouse longer or look at the fish in the aquarium.
Our nursing/assistant staff has to have a lunch hour-- they come in at 8 and usually don’t leave til at least 530-6. They need a real lunch per law and per human decency. But the phones and reception are staffed through lunch. I get a lunch hour-- though I’m usually eating at my desk and doing charts or phone calls, I still enjoy being able to take a break.
OBs usually have notoriously long waits-- sometimes bc they’re doing a delivery, but also bc they often overbook patients.
Are the physicians struggling to pay off their medical school debt and hence feeling the financial pressure to overbook patients?
Disagree about lunch hour being a waste of time. Things that can happen on lunch hours in a medical office setting:
Sometimes these things can happen at other times, sometimes not. If union is involved with staff you must follow union rules for scheduled breaks.
Nothing wrong with asking why your wait was long. See what their response is. But I promise, no one in the office wants to run late at any point during the day - cause that usually means you END late.