this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Their time is more important than your time because they've triple booked all their patients in order to maximize profits. I hope 7min enough to discuss your entire physical health and chronic pain treatment options. If not they'll have to schedule you a follow up because there are other patients waiting! /s
Of course, they’re just greedy bastards. It’s not like there were too few doctors for too many patients.
Every minute you’re waiting your doctor is caring for someone else.
Most doctors would absolutely love to spend way more time with each patient, but they're not ultimately the ones in charge. The hospital administrators are absolutely intentionally overbooking their doctors to maximize profit. That's not even a thing they'd disagree with if you asked them. That's just how for profit healthcare works. America having a shortage of healthcare professionals came after that, because most people don't like working under those conditions.
Ehhh... Doctors have a hell of a lot of administrative paperwork for each patient they have to do. That's where the actual time goes. At least for Emergency Department doctors. I can't speak to private practice docs.
Growing up with a sibling who needed some pretty serious surgeries early on (and then needing some myself as a teen), I spent a lot of time as a kid in doctor's offices. I learned very quickly that going to a doctor's office and waiting is a good thing, because it means you are not the most urgent problem the doctor has to attend to. Someone else could be currently getting their cancer diagnosis explained to them, or the odds of making it alive through surgery, or any other dire shit people hear in doctor's offices. Just because you're there for antibiotics for a sinus infection it doesn't mean everyone is.
Like yeah, it's annoying to wait. You literally have the internet in your pocket though, you can entertain yourself. If you keep getting rushed out of appointments because you have too much to discuss you need to tell the front desk when you call that you need to be scheduled for a longer appointment. If your schedule allows it always do early morning appointments, they have shorter wait times because you're not dealing with 15 other people with appointments before you all being 5 minutes late and fucking up the schedule.
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What if you're the first appointment of the day?
If you’re the first appointment of the day you probably won’t wait much, if at all. This is dependent on your doctor, since some are on call at local hospitals or ERs in addition to their own practice.
My favorite is sitting there while my doctor of 5 years goes through my e-chart on her computer trying to remember who the fuck I am and what exactly is wrong with me.
At least she doesn't google anything while I'm there.
I once had a doctor Google my symptoms while we were both watching the screen. He even said “how did we even do this before Google?” Then he sent me for an unnecessary colonoscopy. He just so happens to be dead now.
The way you wrote it makes it sound like you were somehow involved in his demise. :D
If your doctor doesn’t know you by name, you should consider yourself happy. When you’re walking on the street and your doc recognizes you, I pity you.
I work in a clinic with many surgeons. Luckily they don't typically double/triple book, but it's not unheard of. Most of the time that they're late, it's because they were seeing a patient from before who was late, or they got called into emergency surgery which throws the whole outpatient schedule off.
One or two of the doctors just seem like slower workers, that happens too.
I'm sure there are some offices that do that, but the answer is likely much simpler. People lie. And they lie to staff a lot.
It's not that they're triple booking, it's that everyone schedules an appointment but doesn't say what they're actually needing the Doctor for. So the staff schedule according to what a patient says they are there for, which should take say 15 minutes for what the patient says they need, but after the patient is actually there, they tell the Doctor about 3 other things they never mentioned to the staff ahead. This is what takes up more time than scheduled. Then there's the people that are late at the beginning of the day. First appointment of the day at 8am but they show up at 8:15 for a half'-hour appointment, and the Doctor still sees them, because their next appointment for 8:30 obviously isn't there yet, but that appointment now also goes long.
This then compounds through the day, helped only by pre-planned empty sections of the schedule normally for emergency appointments, people cancelling or not showing up, and people that actually are there for what they said they are getting in and out and taking up less time than planned.
This sometimes happens with public healthcare where I live. I think it's more about there being too few doctors rather than profits, at least in our case.