Pluggers by Rick McKee for September 21, 2020

ain’t that the truth

I always bring a book to my doctor appointments.

If doctors’ offices can charge us patients for late or missed appointments, why can’t we do the opposite for them? Our time is just as valuable as theirs! ;D

Pluggers read boring dated magazines in waiting rooms, instead of bringing a book or something.

I understand that in medicine “the worst must come first.” I understand how hard the work is during normal times. What I do not tolerate is the number of errors in my medical records, referrals, etc. (well, I do because it’s in no small part due to the system not paying and training the support staff well at all and treating them badly). What I do not understand is how they think the system will provide good healthcare (maybe good wealthcare though) by limiting doctor’s appointments to 10 minutes (even before COVID). That’s just BS.

Now Zoom and on-time. Except I can see that Doctor needs a haircut….

More than once I was the first appointment of the day, and the doctor still ran at least 1/2 hour late.

I bring sudoku

True that … It is what it is ;-)

When I was at Hopkins we had at least two doctors who always came in late. The receptionists had Patient Complaint forms and handed them out liberally. Eventually, the docs started coming in on time. One not only came in late, but always – always! – went down for a donut before he saw his first patient. We ran anywhere from an hour to two hours late.

I’ve rarely waited long for appointments. Urgent Care is a different story, but it’s not as if I had an appointment.

I have a Dr appt coming up on Friday, She asked me if I could be there at 7:45. Her office doesn’t open till 8:30. We’ll see how this one goes.

Nothing irks me more than waiting for late appointment-ers. As it is, I have to take a whole day off to see the doc for twenty minutes, two hours after my appointment time. I also love when they ask me do I want an early am appt…. say around 11? Gah!!!

my doctors have been going to tell-medicine where they just send you a link and you basically facetime the doctor except it not facetime and part of the software puts you into a “waiting room” and then you still wait for them to see you. interesting when I used to see them they always used their stethoscope to check out my heart and or breathing no they don’t (can’t) do it.

Retired physician here. Often patients have problems that can be lengthy to deal with. And some go quite quickly. I’ve waited for patients and that itself would set me back. I had chronically late patients and would see someone with a later appointment first so I didn’t get behind. Flu season was challenging because an occasional patient exhibited first signs of type one diabetes and that takes longer to evaluate.

A patient may require more time than anticipated. I don’t begrudge them the time. I hope that the same consideration would be extended to me. I don’t want my Doctors time to be controlled by the Bean Counters.

Prior to being retired it was more concerning when the doctor ran late, but now not so much, that’s why I bring my iPad along. Also, with the pandemic fewer people are seeing the doctor so they are more on time.

The doctor could be in there explaining to someone how long it is going to take to die. Bring a good book.

In the decades before iPads and smartphones, the doctor’s office always had a collection of magazines to read, including Reader’s Digest before they replaced quality stories with way too much advertising.

amen

My dad’s doctor regularly made us wait over an hour to see him, and once we had our appointment, he was brusque and whipped out the prescription pad whenever Dad had a new problem. Dad was in his upper 90’s, so even though he liked the doctor, I insisted we switch. Luckily, we found a good replacement doctor who listened well and cut out about half (especially the really expensive ones) of all those pills he was on.

True and more true when taken over by any government.