- - W.C. Lee, Contributing Columnist to the Carolina Conservative E-Newsletter
Nearly everyone has a horror story about the long wait in almost any doctor's office. These are not people who suddenly just walk in to see the doctor, rather, these are primarily known patients who have had long standing appointments meaning that the expectation is or should be that the appointment will be honored, at least within a reasonable time period. Well, good luck!
Have you
"played" the game while suffering in the doctor's waiting room of
"match my appointment time" with a fellow impatient patient? Your appointment card states that the doctor has reserved a specific time to talk with you about your medical problem, say 9:00 a.m. What would you bet that if you could see the cards of others waiting for the nurse to call out their names that you were the only person assigned this particular time? You would have better odds hitting the Education Lottery meaning that you would lose most emphatically.
While I am not in a position to read the mind of the appointment clerk in a typical doctor's office, from my experience, I surmise that stacking the time slots is simply a way for the medical professional to cover his billing hours in case a patient fails to show up on time because time is money. So who "pays" for this common practice? Answer: the prompt patient who arrived well before the appointment time and who, undoubtedly sick in body, soon becomes sick of waiting for the doctor whose time is much more valuable, to his or her bottom line, not yours.
In defense of the doctor, there are some valid explanations for someone to have to wait. Every "put on hold" patient has heard that the appointment delay was because of an "emergency." There is no one, sick or not, who would begrudge an occasional emergency delay; sure, it happens. The doubtful emergencies are those that occur with predicted frequency.
I read recently a doctor's advertisement that makes the statement, "You will be seen next." That, at least, is some consolation, but the question is,
NEXT to what?Is there any doctor, other than one who is on probation and desperate for patients or who has only begun to practice his craft, who is likely to honor the appointment time that has been committed to you, his paying patient? If so, I would venture to guess that he has not opened his office locally.
From my personal experience, a too typical office visit to see a doctor goes like this. You arrive on time, check in and are told to sit. The long wait begins and you tire quickly of the elevator music in the background. Restlessness is apparent in the faces and actions of the prisoners who brace themselves for being denied their five minutes of MD face time, using that term loosely since this is not the general practice of some busy respected professionals. Although your appointment time has come and long gone, finally more than an hour later, you get called.
Veterans of this "shell game" know the routine too well. This call only gains you admission to the row of seats at the next staging area of waiting. If you are lucky, perhaps someone might speak to you or, surprise, even take your blood pressure although not the best time for this reading to be recorded. Waiting has a tendency to mock this process.
But you tell yourself that at least you are in the inner sanctum. The doctor's voice can even be heard, perhaps talking on the phone or laughing it up, not exactly the paragon of professionalism. Generally there are no old magazines here, so you are left with your inner resources, maybe resorting to a forced meditation on how lucky you are to have advanced to this stage of your early appointment.
Past 11:00 a.m. and now in a state of impatience and drowsiness, your name is at last called, and you march with the nurse to see a row of examinations rooms, doors closed on all except your little cubicle. The chart is slotted and you are told, "The doctor will see you shortly." Define shortly. You study the few bits of reading matter available that usually is something dealing with a prescription some drug company wants you to use, with the considered advice of a willing provider.
The time has arrived. You hear the doctor outside the closed door, but perhaps talking on the telephone about some "important" matter such as his golf game. Blood pressure still abnormal from the long wait, you welcome the doctor as he hurriedly enters with a greeting, holding your chart that he is just then speed reading and asking, "How are you?" Also likely during this initial one-minute consultation, the doctor is speaking into his tape recorder, noting the details from his last patient's visit. After completing this and half listening to your medical woes, he goes through the ritual of checking your vital signs, perfunctorily, another two minutes. After that a little small talk, perhaps even answering your question, "What is the answer to my problem, doctor?" Invariably the answer to the problem is a drug, perhaps the kind that is expensively non-generic and likely one on his preferred list, also one whose company is "kind" to his practice.
It is now just before noon and you are starving due to an overnight fast for some test. You deposit your chart at the front desk and depart somewhat assured that you have gotten the best although slowest treatment that medical science can provide. This is part of the game that we now, unfortunately, have had to accept, and it's how most overworked and overpaid doctors operate these days.
W.C. Lee is a contributing columnist for
Carolina Conservative and resides in Hamer, SC. He can be reached at
Bill Lee
