Airports work like this. You arrive two hours before takeoff only to find out like half an hour before takeoff that the flight is delayed because there’s no plane.
I spent 3 days in an airport because storms near Chicago caused a ripple of delays and cancelations all over the country, I was constantly being told “okay your new flight leaves in 5 hours” and I was in a city over 100 miles away from home with no transportation.
Overall I had tickets and replacement tickets for 9 flights. Honestly given some of the times we found out there was no plane, I didn’t believe we would get to board even as they were calling boarding groups.
100 miles from home
Bro, you could have walked home in that time. Benefit of restrospect.
My destination was not to home (although in reread I an see how it reads that way), it was several states away to get to basic training. Won’t be making that Great Mistake(s) again…
Well that’s fair enough then. I bloody hate flying and airports!
Agreed
My favorite was receiving a text notification at 5:30AM thar my 8AM flight was canceled. Ruined my entire vacation
Better to be stuck on the ground than to be stuck in the air in a plane that needs maintinence, or in bad weather.
There is no plane because everyone on board the inbound flight died when your 737 MAX crashed because of an MCAS failure and also all the bolts fell off.
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And what about the doctors who are half an hour late for the very first appointment of the day. How is that possible?
If they’re on call it might just be they just finished working on 4 am in the morning due to some emergency. Anything is possible ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In A+E, I get it. But a local GP surgery where you HAVE to have an appointment? I’m not buying it.
Not to mention people would arrive at their 10 minute appointment with a list of 5 completely separate medical issues that they’d been saving up for months. So either you do a full history, examination, diagnosis and treatment plan +/- prescription in 2 minutes for each problem, or the 10 minute appointment just becomes a 20 minute appointment. And then you document everything in your lunch break or after you’re supposed to have gone home 🙃
Here in the US, the last time I went to a doctor’s office they had signs posted saying that those under free healthcare could only discuss a single issue per billed visit. Which sure, saves the medical staff a ton of time and scheduling problems, but also means the most vulnerable (and least able to take time off to visit the doctor) have to prioritize health issues and let minor ones go untreated/undiagnosed until they become major ones.
Healthcare is a mess.
How do you even know what a single issue is?
How the heck are you supposed to know if your abdomen hurting, and shitting blood are related? Is the itching related? How about the Hives, or the headaches?
Apparently you’re the doctor now.
10 minute appointment
5 completely separate medical issues
Something, somewhere, isn’t working in public health.
Yes public funded health care has many issues, congratulations on being so astute. Where I live you can book longer appointments if you need them, you just have to actually ask for the extra time. People often have let small issues add up before getting them sorted because procrastination, small issues that most people with private healthcare systems could not afford to go to the doctor to have checked out.
Most important of all, when someone feels ill they don’t have to factor a medical bill into the equation when deciding whether or no they should go to the hospital or possibly fucking die.
I’m in favour of publicly funded healthcare. My family is still with me thanks to the NHS. The problems that exist within it are because of privatisation and neglect by government across ALL areas. If my elderly parents have to fit 6 months worth of bodily problems into a 10 minute consultation with someone who has no accountability then I’m gonna get a bit upset. If you work in the NHS then thanks but more importantly if you work in government then get fucking real about what everyone needs.
I can only speak from my experience with the Canadian healthcare system. Getting a family doctor is a huge struggle right now but if you have one you can book as many appointments as you want for free. (and there are always walk-in clinics which are also free)
I’d see about a discount for those on time, reward the desired behavior.
At one point I setup an appt with a doctor, 3 weeks set date, and to be the first one in the morning, like 9AM, he cannot be late, right? I left at 11:30AM without seeing him.
The last time I took my daughter to the doctor’s, we had the 8:30am appointment. First of the day.
I was feeling pretty optimistic that we would be in and out by 8:45.
So we arrive at 8:20 and take our seats in the waiting room. 8:30 rolls around, no call. 8:40, no call. 8:50 no call. At 8:55 a side door opens and 8 doctors stroll out with coffees in hand and make their way to their individual consulting rooms.
At 9:10 we got the call to go in.
I get that they might need to have a morning meeting to get setup for the day, but 8 doctors each wasting 40 minutes, and the entire appointment book playing catch-up for the rest of the day, seems like a colossal piss take.
Why not, like, have your meeting earlier…?
Dickheads. My grandpa was right back in the 90s when he said the country is going to the dogs. A Tory! In a way I’m glad for him that he isn’t around to see how badly his descendants are getting rinsed.
Because every patient before you was 10-30 minutes late for their appointment so now you have to wait an hour.
Or, more likely in my experience, the doctors office is overbooked and anything more than 10-15 min/patient puts the whole schedule behind.
Not really overbooked, so much as you put down you had a sore throat which takes about 10-15 minutes but now you’re here can you have your ear looked at and also your stomach hurts but it started about six years ago and you think you might have ADHD so could you get a referral for an evaluation?
And it’s like that every other patient.
I’d argue that if that’s consistently happening, you’re overbooked. If you book more people than you can reasonably expect to serve on time, that’s being overbooked.
I see that as no different as the shitty companies that have an IBR that repeatedly tells you about ‘higher than normal call volume’ no matter when you call and anytime you call for months/years. At some point you know your normal and aren’t staffing or booking at proper levels.
I work for a psych clinic where the head doctor rarely turns down same-day appointments, while his schedule is fully-booked to see multiple patients/15-20 mins. We’ve slowly bled providers over the course of the last 3 years and haven’t really replaced any of them. Turns out, it’s hard to hire when you have a reputation for low salaries and nefarious contract negotiations.
Each specialty may have their own story, but we definitely see constant issues of being overbooked AND understaffed.
Once I had to wait more than 30 minutes even though I was the very first patient in the morning.
I think veterinary offices are the only places I can understand. Everyone there is underpaid, working hard, enduring trauma, and doing it because they love animals. Although I’ve never seen them get upset at someone for being late!
veterinary offices are the only places I can understand. Everyone there is underpaid, working hard, enduring trauma, and doing it because they love animals.
Boy do I have some news about basically everyone in healthcare…
Pretty much everyone is making less than previous generations, and that’s not even accounting for inflation. I am a specialty provider and the salary for my position hasn’t increased in decades, all while licensing and education costs have skyrocketed.
Healthcare isnt the get rich quick scheme people seem to believe it is. It’s basically hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for near a decade of school, just for the privilege to basically work for free for several years.
Pretty much any person in healthcare under 40 is there because they love people and want to help them. Nowadays it’s just too difficult and thankless of a job for any other real reason other than empathy. There are plenty of easier and more profitable ways to make money.
The reason you may have experiences that run contrary to this is the same reason you’ve prob had to wait in a room for over an hour. The providers are not the ones in charge of their schedules, and are probably experiencing burnout.
The people making the schedules have no idea how much time is appropriate for the patient care the person is coming in for. All they know is management wants less down time and faster turnaround. So they just pile as many patients as they can schedule, and then utilize the patient’s understandable agitation as a stick to prod the provider along.
Did you respond to the wrong person?
“Healthcare isnt the get rich quick scheme people seem to believe it is. It’s basically hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for near a decade of school, just for the privilege to basically work for free for several years.”
I never said this nor do I think this, I’m so confused lol. OP asked about other services that are similar, and I responded.
They assumed that when you said “veterinary offices are the only places I can understand” that you meant you cannot understand this happening at doctor’s offices.
Ahhh thanks, that was a flippant remark. I meant “veterinary offices are the only place I can think of in the moment that are similar”.
Still a little bit confused by the jump they made even if it was meant the first way, because I wouldn’t blame the poor wait times on an average staff worker but the hospital owners, drug makers, equipment patents, etc making millions a year and incentivizing lower pay for the average worker and a fast turn around time.
Their time is actually more important than yours
Reading the comments in this thread just indicates to me that we need more doctors. The supply of doctors is definitely artificially restricted
For real. At least in the US medical school is incredibly expensive (on top of undergrad being really expensive too). Going to school is a huge risk, because if you find you can’t handle it half way through, you’ve got all that debt,without the job to actually pay it. We’ve got so many incredible potential doctors and nurses that just can’t afford to go to school
It also takes 2x longer than most of the world to get licensed.
Yep, that AMA is proof the licensing organization shouldn’t also be the union.
Our patient visits are set as 15 minute slots standard.
This isn’t enough time to practice good medicine for anything much more than something like a flu or strep throat. How does one squeeze in an entire rooming process followed by a solid HPI, physical, poc testing and then plan review with pt in 15 minutes?
They don’t.
But with how medicine works (in the US) it’s the how clinics make enough money to stay open.
For clarity: I work at a Federally Qualified Health Center, not a for profit clinic.
But with how medicine works (in the US) it’s the how clinics make enough money to stay open.
This is the truth. PCP offices in particular have razor-thin margins and insurance reimbursement goes down every year while supply, fixed, and staff costs go up every year. This is an insurance industry and healthcare system problem. Your doctors’ offices are just doing everything they can to stay open.
Fortunately CMS is rethinking the role of primary care and realizing we can save money if we’re able to provide high quality preventive care like we’re supposed to. PCP service payments (RVUs) are up 18% since 2020 which has been a long time coming. Unfortunately physician pay is down vs inflation over the last few decades but thank Christ administration salaries are way, way up over the same timeframe.
One of my doctors clearly has it this way. When I’m there in the afternoon, there are dozens of people waiting because each person takes longer than the appointed slot and so everyone moves back in time… but at least they have good managing there and the receptionist will tell me when I arrive whether it will be 30 or 50 minutes to wait.
My eye doctor, on the other hand… I arrive 15 minutes before my appointment and there are only three other people there, two of whom arrived at the same time as me. How the hell does it take an hour for me until I can go in? What are they doing in there that every patient takes 20-25 minutes for an eye exam?
I had this happen when I was at my Dr’s appt. I needed a script for oxygen. Prior to that, I watched several people walk in, get called to go to one of the examination rooms almost immediately. The thing is that each one of the other patients was obviously in far worse shape. When I finally was seen, my Dr started apologizing profusely. I told her that I know what triage means and to not worry about it. Stuff happens. If I was one of the others, I would want relief too.
This is the reality. A doctor is trying to see as many patients as possible who want to be seen. Not every condition requires the same amount of time. They do their best to estimate, but ultimately, if a doctor is willing to give you extra time, then the price is usually paying it forward by waiting longer in the waiting room for fellow patients. If you’re late when they are ready, then you drop the efficiency of the entire day. If you’re ready when they’re not, well, yes, their time is actually more valuable in this case.
I had this discussion recently and my friend pointed out that this also happens with utility workers on in-house visits, I guess cause of the demand there is on their work. At least where I live.
But I can’t take it with doctors man. Also it’s the only business where you can pay to get insulted or diminished, yet not diagnosed, repeatedly from different specialists (true story)
I had appendicitis for 18 months.
I’m not going to kill that doctor. But he is 45 years older than me and some fresh graves just scream out to be pissed on.
Highfalutin fuck with his own practice and a fireplace in the lobby couldn’t diagnose and treat what a chick in her 20s with a nose ring working the night shift at Halifax caught in an hour.
I’m not going to kill that doctor. I ain’t gonna go looking for him. If I encounter him again and he isn’t cold in his urn, I’m gonna hurt him in a way medical science can’t fix.
What?
One night, I was about 20 years old or so, I woke up in severe abdominal pain. Very nausea, such vomiting. Couldn’t stand up right. Go to the hospital, given Maalox. Throw up the Maalox. Given…something else that put me out cold.
This happened over and over again for a year and a half, once or twice a month. Went to the doctor about it, “there’s nothing we can do.”
I go off to university out of state. It happens there. Young night shift doctor has the bright idea to put me in a CT machine while it hurts. Can you say “2 AM appendectomy?” Never had another one of those bouts of pain and puking again.
I apparently had appendicitis for 18 months.
And I’m not going to be a very nice person to the doctor that repeatedly didn’t do anything about it.
Try 3 hours, it’s the reason I bought a miyoo mini plus, just to take it to doctor’s offices.
I got a gamesir x2 pro for my appointments, changed my life, carry the little fucker everywhere now.
How many other businesses would be fine with operating like this
The Apple Store, for starters.
Ticketmaster, also, too.
Ok but how come i have to fill out that paper every time i come in? I’ve been to the same clinic over and over. Do they just throw my information away? Is it busywork to buy them time? I know it’s a minor quibble but fucking hell
“My time is important, your time is unimportant”.
I dunno what your job is but a doctor’s time is more important than my time for sure.
Sure, but all the more reason to keep track of how late they’re running and inform patients accordingly. If the doc is running an hour late, shoot me a text that says that.
Totally agree on communication, but I think that’s more a thing reception should be responsible for. Reception’s attitude seems to be “you want to ask for perfectly reasonable information? Well fuck you.”
Oh absolutely
