re: How long do you wait for Dr. Appoinrment

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I've always wondered why doctors aren't more customer service oriented.

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You get two choices:
1) always stay on schedule
2) give your patients the appropriate amount of time

Often, both happen. Unfortunately, many people don't understand that the appointments are done in a "let's talk about your problem, review your test results, look at you, formulate treatment plan" manner, and after the last part has been completed, add a new problem, prompting the re-iteration of a cycle.

Many patients come in thinking a problem is more severe than it is. They get longer scheduled blocks, and sometimes don't take all the time.
Other times, patients come in with something that they don't think is very severe that winds up being quite severe. This prompts a short visit for what requires a longer blocked amount of time. When this happens, the doctor again has two choices:
1)address the concern/problem appropriately which throws the whole day off
2) have patient reschedule
Obviously, there are up and downsides to both.

There is no good way of 100% accurately estimating what a patient needs prior to the office visit. Thus, medicine unfortunately cannot be run as an efficient business while also giving the highest level of patient care. You can have a good mix of both, but the occasional 15m visit sometimes takes 45m, and there's no way to make both that and the other patients happy at the same time.


As far as practice management and where undergrad hours are spent- yes- very few spend time learning how to run a business. A clinic set could easily be made more efficient and generate higher revenues, but it would almost definitely come at the cost of quality of care. Some are willing to do this. Others aren't. Pick your poison.

used to be 20min to an hour for mom

0 minutes for me....

I brought my Dad to the VA last week, waited three hours and never seen the doctor.