GEEEEEZ! How the hell will your doctor know what to tell you without that information? That would be like turning something on the lathe, then writing up the spec after you're done. So what if it's useless? You were done right on time!
BTW, the VA does as much as it can, (Usually a week before your appointment) to give their lab time to get the results.
Patient: "Doc, I think I sprained my foot." Doc: "I have no idea what to say. We haven't taken your vitals yet."
That's commendable!
Most doctors don't have clinic hours scheduled immediately following ER hours for just that reason. However, I still agree that there are valid reasons for not always being ready on time. My point is that there are no valid reasons for *usually* or *always* not being ready on time. When lateness becomes the norm, appoinements need to be scheduled farther apart.
Also, it would go a LONG way toward placating me if, when I checked in, the receptionist said something like, "We're running twenty minutes behind, if you like we can reschedule" or if the nurse, when calling me back to the exam room twenty minutes after my appointment, said something like, "Sorry about the delay, it's been very busy today." That has never happened in the hundreds of visits to the dozens of medical and dental clinics I've been to. I've been called in as much as fifty minutes late with no acknowledgement that there was anything wrong. If I made an appointment with a customer and showed up twenty minutes late, the first thing I'd do is apologize. Acting as though nothing was wrong would indicate a certain amount of contempt for the customer.
It's compounding an inadvertent rudeness with intentional bad manners. It's not the nurse's fault they're running late and I don't hold her responsible, but as a representative of the clinic, she should apologize on their behalf.
Good luck and best wishes!
I suspect that's true. I have been to clinics that have caught double-scheduling the same time slot with the same doctor for two different patients, and in some clinics I suspect they even triple-schedule.
I have observed one thing with my eye doctor: If I arrive before the appointed time, it takes about one hour. If I arrive after the appointed time, it takes at least two hours.
Joe Gwinn
Actually there is a good reason for this. Take a course in Queueing Theory.
Dan
That could be a case of double-scheduling, though I'd be shocked if they were actually doing that for hour-long appointments.
Agreed, and that's what I did.
I disagree. The fact that my current clinic is always able to get me into the exam room within five minutes and the doctor coming in within five minutes after that is proof.
If you know something, say it. If not, kindly leave the discussion. Telling someone to "take a course" doesn't add anything to the conversation.
One way to bring this to the attention of all the waiting patients is when you first arrive. Announce to the receptionist you are here for your 10:15 with Dr. Jones. If you see one...or two... heads look up, you know they double-book.
--Andy Asberry--
------Texas-----
Excellent tip, thanks!
It being a "good" reason depends on if you're the one being optimized for (doc), or the one paying them (the cusotomer).
On Jan 23, 10:43 pm, "Adam Corolla" wrote: after that is proof.
I will leave the discussion. Queueing Theory isn't something I want to try to explain to people that probably aren't interested anyway. But if you want to understand, that is what you want to learn.
Dan
snipped-for-privacy@krl.org wrote in article ...
So, you passed the course, but don't know enough about the subject to give a brief overview.....not even the course outline from a college catalogue?
That's today's "education" for you!
That, or you're just huffing and puffing and have only read the term "Queueing Theory" somewhere, and thought you could sound smarter than the average poster by tossing the term into your post.
Quick Google:
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What is Queueing Theory?
Queueing Theory is the study of queues (sometimes called waiting lines). Most people are familiar with the concept of queues; they exist all around us in daily lives. Queueing Theory can be used to describe these real world queues, or more abstract queues, such as are often found in many branches of computer science, for example in operating system design. This section of the project explores the mathematics and theory of queueing theory. For more information on worked examples of queueing theory application, see the section on Applications of Queueing Theory.
Much of queueing theory is very complex. Almost all of it relies heavily on mathematics, especially statistics. This section investigates the mathematics and theory of queueing theory, but much of the mathematics is formidable (some of it beyond graduate mathematics level) and therefore beyond the author. Thus, most important results will be stated, but not derived (where possible, a source where a proof can be found will be included). The mathematics for the M / M / 1 model will be worked through partially, but results for many of the other queueing models will be summarised in a table.
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I never even HEARD of the process before today, but I found several explainations under Google.
One would think that the one who introduced it into this thread could do something similar, rather than try to BS people.
I am just huffing and puffing and have only read the term "Queueing Theory" somewhere, and thought I could sound smarter than the average poster by tossing the term around. Also figured that anyone interested could find information on the internet and pursue it to whatever level they wanted.
Glad you learned something new today. There is a real reason why one has a short wait at a doctors office. And as Dave Hinz noted it isn't to optimize your time. But to be fair there are a lot of people that don't mind a short wait. Gives one a chance to read that National Geographic that you did not read last year. Or if one is really organized, read some more of the book you have been reading.
Dan
short summary:
if you have something always waiting in the queue, you optimize the throughput of the queue overall, but not the time of an individual of the queue. if you have empty queues, you have waiting time, startup and finishing time, and that slows down the performance of the pipeline.
ie: the doctor does more work if there are waiting patients. it's not an optimization of time of the waiting people, but of the doctor.
modern computer cpu's work the same way, btw.
regards, charlie
LOL! That's what I got out of his post as well.
Thank you!
That makes perfect sense. However, I think that the clinics take it way too far. If I have an appointment for 10:00 AM, they call me back to the exam room by 10:05, get my vitals and the doc comes in by 10:10, I don't mind. To me, it wouldn't be worth complaining about. However, the usual (except at the clinic I go to now) is that I'd get called back to the exam room around 10:10 or 10:20 and the doc would show up somewhere between 10:20 and
10:30.
And were too belligerant or ignorant to give a simple explanation like "charlie" did, compounding that with the arrogant statement "take a course." You act foolish, and people will take you for a fool.
Well, apparently you haven't been following the thread. I've noted several times that a short wait is acceptable. However, if I don't get to see the doctor until 15, 20 or more minutes after my appointment, that's not a "short wait" as I've defined it. The topic of discussion isn't why there's a short wait at the dental and medical clinics, but why there's usually a relatively long wait of a quarter to a half hour.
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