<p>My husband now has TWO MA’s , hustling and transcribing, and getting high marks from patients AND the employer…and he feels bad for the MA’s! Still ends up doing charts and emails for hours nights and weekends. At least with the emr he can do it at home. </p>
<p>There is a Kaiser commercial with a doctor on his laptop, and the voice over going on and on about how amazing it is to have your physician available online. The doctor is eating a sandwich and grinning,as he sends a reply. </p>
<p>Shrinkwrap -I think you are my twin aside from the 2 MAs part it sounds like we have the same spouse. He doesn’t want to pay another MA -but I would love it if he did. He works all the time. </p>
<p>Wow, so easy to identify the physicians, spouses and relatives of physicians, and, perhaps parents of pre-med or med students here…</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I was rised in the Northeast, not the South. I expect courtesy in all my interactions with other members of the human race, regardless of their status or chosen profession. Yes, there is a certain degree of phoniness to the usual renditions of please, thank you, excuse me and I’m sorry, but we all recognize that etiquette exists to grease the skids of human interaction, and the world would be a rougher place without it.</p>
<p>I went to college with a large number of pre-med students. Some were motivated by a desire to serve humanity; others by a desire for money, prestige, or parental approval. They were just people, with complex personalities and various baggage, just like the rest of us.</p>
<p>Was I polite and cordial to the doctor? Of course I was. I wouldn’t dream of behaving any other way.</p>
<p>Is it wrong to compare a medical visit to a business transaction? We’ll, physicians in private practice offer a service and get paid for it. Out of their revenues they cover rent, salaries of staff, insurance, etc., and take home what’s left. Looks like a business to me. </p>
<p>Wow, so easy to spot the attorneys and spouses of attorneys …</p>
<p>You live in an industry that is for the mostpart not regulated by third party payors. You want to increase your profit or cover rising expenses? Raise your hourly rate. Physicians can’t do that. They live in a world of increasing costs and decreasing reimbursements.</p>
<p>Common courtesy goes both ways. This thread title and the original post could have been written in a far less provocative and more diplomatic way to have congenial dialogue. </p>
<p>And FWIW, I am not a physician. Am in healthcare, but not that almighty MDeity that you seem to think owes you this apology for taking care of his/her patients in the time necessary.</p>
<p>And what if the MD started the day late for whatever reason? His wife was ill, he got caught in traffic or rounded later than expected at the hospital. Maybe he/she spent an extra minute at the beginning of every patient appointment apologizing and explaining why he was late. By the time h/she got to the 30th patient of the day (YOU) he/she had expended that additional 30 minutes that left you waiting in the exam room. </p>
<p>Waiting 30 minutes in an exam room, waiting longer than one wants for a flu shot or waiting for a letter of recommendation just seems to incite a level of outrage in some posters.</p>
<p>Dont know what kind of law you practice, but there are countless times that people are inconvenienced by hearings or meetings or depositions or mediation or what have you getting delayed or cancelled at the last minute because someone was unavailable or someone got called into court, etc… Stuff happens. Live with it.</p>
<p>Psst… It is getting rather late. Let me tell you a bed time fairy tale. Once upon a time, there lived that nerdy chemist who designed and made some white powder that the nerdy biologist tested on mice and cured them of cancer. Then the two nerds went to their company’s president, the MBA, who told their lawyer to apply for a patent for said white powder. Then the doctor gave the powder to a human patient, snd the patient was cured of her cancer! The English major journalist wrote a story about it, and the Street went mad. They all then exercised their stock options and lived happily ever after on their own private tropical island, drinking endkess margaritas and surfing. The end. </p>
<p>When you take a lot of money for doing rather elementary things (fill a hole in a tooth, hand over antibiotics for a sore throat), you should both be polite to patients (customers) and arrange scheduling so that a 45-60 minute delay is not normative in your practice.</p>
<p>I don’t enjoy waiting for services, either - does anyone? I’m married to a doc who has to wait when he gets medical care, too. As has been said several times on the thread, many MDs today are not in a position to arrange scheduling. The days of the MD who called the shots in the office are pretty much over, especially in large, busy practices.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see any medical/dental procedure as elementary. If I couldn’t do it out of a first aid kit, I’m glad there are trained professionals who take the time to get it right. Far too many antibiotics have been “handed over” for sore throats and we all face a big problem because of it. </p>
<p>Time for me to stop thinking about it as a calling and start thinking about it as just a job. It would make it a lot easier to be on time both in the office and for dinner. Guess who looses in the long run? My soul and your health.</p>
<p>@frazzled1, I SO agree on the antibiotics…I have a sister and a niece that have abused them for so long that they no longer are effective. I haven’t had medical insurance for 30 years…I get sick, I rest, take fluids and hope my body heals itself. If I went to a Dr. with every ache and pain I have had…well it is just silly because within a few days I am fine. My daughter and her fiance are both in med school…my d is very aware of the uninsured…I have just been fortunate with my health. If I am fortunate enough to see a Dr., I am surely not going to complain about a wait, it will be a priviiege.</p>
<p>Well, if I’d ignored MY symptoms over the years, I’d be dead now. UTIs turn into kidney infections. That happened to me once, in 1996, and I’m going to make darned sure it doesn’t happen again. I am one of the 2% of women who have a urinary tract that holds on to bacteria like velcro (doctor’s words). I have to take a low-dose antibiotic EVERY DAY to avoid getting an infection. If I happen to miss two days (like when I forgot them on a weekend trip), I get an infection. My urologist, who is retiring this year and is considered the best one in our area, told me he’s never had a patient develop a resistance to this particular drug, thank goodness. Anyway, there are always exceptions!</p>
<p>Yikes, I guess if I had something that was dire or recurring, I would have to go to a Dr. I have never heard of that ML, glad thee is a maintenance antibiotic for that!</p>
<p>If you really thought it was a calling, you would schedule fewer appointments, generally keep on time, and give the patient the time needed for proper treatment.</p>
<p>And who has ‘just a job’, to the extent that they lack a soul? The person who fixes your car? Makes your meals? Teaches your kids? Comes when you are getting robbed? Plays music to entertain you? Cleans your hotel room?</p>
<p>Yes, really, if your ‘calling’ (and your soul) makes you indifferent to 90% of your customers waiting 45 minutes or whatever beyond a scheduled time.</p>
<p>My own physicians, and certainly my husband, are hardly indifferent to their patients waiting beyond a reasonable time. I respect the profession of medicine enough to consider it a calling, in part because I know that patients are not mere “customers” to these MDs. </p>
<p>My husband arrives at work at 7:15 every morning and literally does not stop until he leaves for the day. Every lunch is a working lunch, catching up on phone calls and EMR. He goes from one appointment to the next without a break except occasionally to hit the bathroom. So that’s what he knows - he’s working his ass off. What’s he got to apologize for? He can’t tell the office manager to schedule fewer patients. And he can’t tell the general pediatricians who phone him every day to ask that a consult be squeezed in that the parents of a kid with a potential heart problem will just have to wait 4 weeks until there’s an opening.</p>
<p>Most MDs are reasonable people, because most people are reasonable people. So if an apology will make you feel better about a long wait, why not say simply that? “I would feel better about waiting so long to see you if you apologized for taking my time.” Otherwise, vote with your feet and find a doctor whose office schedules appointments in a way you like.</p>
<p>Maybe, the office managers should do the apologizing. Some of them are where I have run into arrogance. In fact, one of my kids explained it to me by saying that people who have little control in life like to make a big deal about the small amount of control they possess. This is after a receptionist scolded me for being ten minutes late before we waited another half hour. And, yeah. It was for antibiotics. The doctor obviously had no idea about any of the drama happening in the front office. </p>
Oh please. Making up silly numbers for the purpose of being inflammatory does not make for a reasonable discussion. </p>
<p>As many posters have tried to explain, the Dr. is rarely in control of his/her schedule today, and often the “stay on time but give each patient the time needed” is like the irresistible force and the immovable object. And Its a Drs office. Emergencies happen that require time. It is what it is in many aspects of healthcare. Is there any such thing as a legal emergency?</p>
<p>The original premise, which was silly from the get-go, is that because the OP was seeing a Dr for the first time and she’d made herself a convenient appt at the end of the day, that the Dr. should know off the top of his head as he goes from exam room to exam room throughout the day, what her appt time was, know when she was put in the exam room, and explain, apologetically why she had to wait a half hour. And that somehow not doing so, regardless of how cordial, thorough and highly regarded this person was, is rude and inconsiderate. She baited Drs to come defend themselves in her OP and then chided them in her post last night, that she could “easily see who the Drs and family of Drs were”. Well, sheesh, she asked for feedback from them, little of which is being listened to anyway. </p>
<p>@sorghum - have you really not read this thread where it’s been said many times that doctors, for the most part, are being employed by corporations now, which dictate the amount of time they can spend with a patient and how many patients they see each day??</p>
<p>I highlight it because several posters on here don’t seem to grasp this concept, or believe those of who do, are pulling this notion out of thin air. I’m starting to guess the people who don’t understand this don’t spend as much time in the health care system as others. Feel very, very lucky that you don’t. I am one of dozens of members here on CC who have faced serious life-threatening illnesses recently which require lots of time in this system and you have to learn to negotiate it with knowledge of how it works. </p>
<p>As for the lawyers, I don’t know of any private practices who are managed by outside corporations who have no one inside knowing what’s going on, so no comparison can be made. </p>
Still ends up doing charts and emails for hours nights and weekends. At least with the emr he can do it at home. 
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