I generally agree, but being more efficient allows the clinics to keep costs down, and that's a huge plus in these days of continually-rising medical costs. However, it's just as efficient to keep each patient waiting one minute as it is to keep each one waiting twenty minutes. I accept a five minute buffer between the appointment and getting into the exam room, and another five minutes to see the doc as not being excessive.
Way too ignorant to give a simple explanation. And too complacent to care if people think I am a fool. Who knows maybe I am a fool.
Dan
As someone who respects both you and Adam, seems to me, you're not a fool, and the google search terms you provided were more than sufficient and appropriate.
That said, this doesn't change the fact that me, as the customer, has a different optimization goal than the doctor. If they don't know how badly their staff is handling their appointments, tell them. If they know but don't care, change docs. It's a commodity product, no different than gasoline or sugar. If they don't meet your requirements, fire them and move on. Your expertise is no different than theirs, other than in the specific field of knowledge. If their staff is mishandling their schedule, tell them. If they don't fix it, fire them.
I have a somewhat different outlook. As an ex engineer, I believe that there is a huge difference between the top 5 % of engineers and the average engineer. The really good engineers are worth much more than what they get paid and can out perform the average engineer by a factor of two or three. Just my belief, but not without some studies that substanciate the idea. The book Software Engineering Economics (Prentice-Hall Advances in Computing Science & Technology Series): by Barry W. Boehm says pretty much the same thing.
And I suspect the same thing applies to doctors. So I think a really good doctor is worth having as your doctor. Probably does not make a difference for most people most of the time, but......... So I would be loath to fire my doctor as I think she is better than average. On the other hand, because she is good, waiting has not been a problem. She has better than average staff, and they do fairly well at scheduling. If I had a doctor that I thought was average, I would be looking for another doctor, regardless of how well the staff scheduled.
I have given a few things to the doctor and staff. But I don't think that has had anything to do with how long I wait.
Dan
well, well well - if any of you are actually inteested in queueing therory, I just happen to have a pile of books on the subject, as well as other topics in operations research, that a retired professor asked me to sell for him - some of these are the original classic works in the area - also statistics and so on. on the top of the pile is "ORSA publication number
2 - finite queing tables" -- if anyone wants some of this stuff, chase me down off the list - the one title I listed will be cheap - say $5 (or maybe less) plus shipping - it won't fit a flat rate envelope.so, amazingly enough, this is on topic.....
f>
My point was that he could simply have said something like "it's more profitable if patients are waiting for doctors rather than the reverse." Do you see what I mean? If I want to say that A is more likely than B, I don't say "there's a reason for A, take a statistics course so you can understand." While I still feel that I have a valid point, I now realize that I was far too harsh in my reply to Dan and for that I apologize to him. Sorry, Dan!
Maybe we all are. Sorry for my rude response, it was uncalled for. Looking back, I don't know why I got so bent about it.
Gee, almost half of the people in the waiting room are with a patient, not there to see a doctor. It can be even higher where children, disabled, or the elderly are the main group of patients. I've seen up to six people waiting for someone, so they can leave.
That's obvious. As "Little Jimmy Dickens" says on the Opry, "You can always tell a Texan, you just can't tell them very much.".
Dave Hinz wrote: (snip)
Easy to say change docs, but there are other issues than waiting. I've had good docs and bad docs, some made me wait more than others but I'm not going to fire a good doc who makes me wait for an unknown doc who may still make me wait. I'm not interested in changing docs until I have no nits to pick.
Besides, who wastes time in a waiting room? Read the book you brought with you. No book? Plan better in the future. Or, as Heinlein said "Waiting is." Embrace tranquility.
David
Apology accepted, but it really wasn't necessary. My post was very brief and so not easy to determine the tone I meant to convey. Your reply made me realize that I could have done better.
Dan
That's a good way to look at it if it works out for you. Another way of looking at it is that a policy which makes patients normally wait 15-20 minutes past their appointment time indicates a lack of regard for the customers. If they're willing to show their lack of regard in this obvious a way, who knows what other corners they may cut which aren't so apparent?
It's bad manners, you understand, ill treatment, to make an appointment which you have no intention of showing up on time for. It shows contempt for the customers. You might appreciate an extra 20 minutes during the day to read, but for people who work during the day, those 20 minutes could mean the difference between a good and a bad day businesswise. Also consider the people who find the chairs in the waiting area uncomfortable. Or when the other people waiting have screaming kids, or another patient has a loud, hacking cough, etc.; or when the only seats available are the ones by the door so you get an icy blast every time someone opens the door--if you're able to enjoy a book under those conditions, that's fine, but not everyone else is.
Thank you. :-)
Well then, if the heads that look up are sitting together, they might be together. I haven't tried that loud announcing myself, but I overheard another patient stating that he had an appointment with a certain doctor at the same time as my appointment with that doctor. When I questioned the receptionists about this, they did everything they could to "pacify" me without doing any actual explaining.
Incidentally, that was one time I was actually called in to my appointment early and the doctor was in almost before the nurse had time to take my vitals. It seemed to me that I'd caught them doing something wrong. I'm not sure if double-scheduling is actually illegal, but it seems unethical and is certainly poor treatment.
It sounds like you just need to stop seeing any doctors. That way, you'll never have to wait for anything, ever again.
That's a silly response. I'm not sure whether or not you're joking, but as I said before, I don't mind waiting. What I don't like is being made to wait excessively on a regular basis and never offered any sort of apology or explanation for it.
Think about it. If you make an appointment with a client to meet at a certain place and due to uncontrollable circumstances you know that you'll show up twenty minutes late, do you try to contact the client and let them know you're running late? If you can't reach them and if the client is still there when you arrive 20 minutes late, do you apologize for being late, or do you act as though nothing is wrong?
My problem with certain clinics is habitually running 15 to 20 minutes late without ever adjusting their scheduling to correct this, compounded by the rudeness of acting like there's nothing wrong with this sort of treatment.
I've never had the problems you seem to have with dotors, or anyone else.
Clients? Not for the last 20 years. Prior to that, I did contract electronics for school systems, and NEVER had any set times. They called when they needed me, and I went to the location to do the work. Meetings were always AFTER school let out for the day, and before their work day ended.
Like I said, i never seem to have that problem.
Who cares? Your personal experience has nothing to do with the topic of conversation. If you look back through the thread, you'll see that many other people have nad the exact same experiences I've had. I never stated that all clinics have this problem or that the doctors are the cause, for that matter.
You've wandered off into your own little world there. Apparently, your internal conversation is intruding on your perception of what's being said here.
From what I've seen in this thread, that makes you unusual.
Maybe. But I would not expect a lot of people that have not had that problem to post in this thread. So Michael may be the norm. And the ten or fifteen people that have replied to your original post are the few that have the problem.
Dan
Neither would the people who rarely go to clinics, or the people who don't mind waiting, or the people who aren't interested in joining the discussion.
Not from what I've seen and heard.
That's a guess based on what? I've been to over 35 clinics and found this to be a problem at all but four or five of them. Try an informal poll of your friends and co-workers and see for yourself. It's possible that this problem is more common in some parts of the country than in others, because most of my friends and co-workers agree about the average 15-20 minute wait as well.
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