re: How long do you wait in the Doctor's office before you leave?

And that makes sense. Their time is worth a hell of a lot more than some shite-dick civilian.

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Do they take being taken advantage of or do they walk out?

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Being taken advantage of? How exactly are you being taken advantage of?

I hate waiting also, for anything. But as paige said, people have no idea how a clinic works. Having to wait at your doctor's appointment is not the same as going to grab the pizza you called in 30 min ago, only to find its not ready when you get there. Contrary to popular belief, treating patients is not the same as cranking out pizzas. Patients are fricking complicated, and no two patients (even with the same exact list of problems) can be treated exactly the same. Thanks to modern medicine, people now live a long time with shite that used to kill them way before they had the luxury of being followed in clinic. The otherwise healthy patient who comes in with a splinter in a finger is a zebra in most primary care clinics nowadays.

A whole separate discussion could be had over the ever-growing shitpile of paperwork and bullshite documentation that CMS and insurance companies require be completed for each patient. Emergencies and other urgent issues are unavoidable in a clinic. This includes PCPs, not just include OBs having to leave to perform emergency csections, or cv surgeons having to run crack open a chest. Maybe as a PCP you have to admit a pt bc they have new afib with rvr, or a pts son calls about his mother who fell and hit her head, or is having chest pain, or maybe a stroke. All of this takes time and attention.

The argument that "doctors shouldn't schedule more patients than they have time to see" is true to an extent. However, like any business, you have to be able to cover your overhead and make a profit, which is becoming more and more difficult in medicine. 10 yrs busting arse in med school and residency, plus 300k of student loan debt, deserves more than to just break even.

No patient should have to wait for 2 hours to be seen when they had an appointment. Sometimes that happens, but it shouldn't happen often. On the other hand, walking out after 20 minutes of waiting? That's fricking ridiculous.

And the comment(s) stating there is "no excuse" for patients having to wait at a clinic appt tell me one thing: Someone has no fricking clue about medicine.

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10 yrs busting arse in med school and residency, plus 300k of student loan debt, deserves more than to just break even.

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Now you sound like a teacher crying

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walking out after 20 minutes of waiting? That's fricking ridiculous.

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We'll just agree to disagree. You call it ridiculous and I call it valuing my time. I'm not beholden to a doctor's schedule anymore than he's beholden to mine.

I think more folks leave the office after a 20 minute wait than I thought based on your response.

In the OP I stated that it wasn't an urgent matter. I didn't ask if they were on time, I was told they were on time and it wouldn't be long. They lied. They usually lie though so I expected that.

Talking about how much doctors make or how hard they have it is kinda useless. It'll just be a pissing match. I have several doctor and dentist friends. They bitch and moan but don't skip our ski trips or their next BMW upgrade. They are doing just fine.

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Talking about how much doctors make or how hard they have it is kinda useless.

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Actually, it is relevant to this discussion. Reimbursement cuts absolutely influence doctors to try and squeeze more patients in their daily schedule to make up that lost income. Seeing more patients in a day requires either extending clinic hours (longer days, weeks, or both), spending less time on each patient, or both. Shorter appt time slots means less cushion for unexpected delays.

Depends on how good the doc is. The best shoulder surgeon around has a long wait time. I would just bring a lot to read and expect it. I have the advantage of generally knowing who is good in their field.

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10 yrs busting arse in med school and residency, plus 300k of student loan debt, deserves more than to just break even.


Now you sound like a teacher crying

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They are mostly cry babies, who aren't nearly as intelligent as they'd like you to think

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I typically give them about 20-25 minutes or so

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I usually don't mind a wait of up to about an hour. After that, it's a bit frustrating. I understand that it's a nonstandard workflow that is very difficult to control despite very prudent attempts. If the physician acknowledges his lateness, I forgive it. It's frequently out of their control- primary care is complex, and the idea of estimating how long a visit needs to be is near impossible. Some of that lies on the patient- they state one problem to make the appointment but really want to talk about something else or, on the way out the door, ask for things to be done that they don't realize take a fair amount of time. They don't really realize what they ask for or how inaccurately representing their appointment reason can affect the doc's entire day. It would be good business but terrible medicine to let those things go unaddressed on that visit. Patients should be educated on how to appropriately schedule appointments and accurately describe what they are coming for. It's a bit more than a simple business-minded slotted appointment time. Though this article explains how primary care is too complex for fairly standardized electronic health records, it can be extrapolated/reasonably inferred that the unpredictable nature is part of the job that spills over into other aspects of the "business" side of it all.

The patients are most definitely not the only ones at blame- physicians themselves can be quite inefficient. Some do book more than they could handle on a good day. That's not a very good decision on their part. And, of course, there are lots of totally outside factors- other physicians phoning for coordination of care (particularly when they're seeing an established patient of the PCP and trying to put them in the hospital for anything. Patients are notoriously horrible historians when it comes to their medical history, which medications they take, etc.) It's something that I would definitely want my physician to push his schedule back for if I were the one in some ER out of town/state- and to disagree is to discount quality patient care. It's not something that should be pushed to later in the day on the doctor's own free time.
Now, there are probably doctors who do push back patient care for things that they could/should handle on their own free time. I haven't really worked with any of them. And I really hope I never become one of those.


A solid relationship with a primary care physician is worth more to me than an extra hour I hadn't planned on spending. I'm a little weird, though.


Edited for accidentally selecting a terrible link that merely referenced the link I had intended to include. The one up above is good now! That along with The AAFP's recent article on how not-straightforward a "typical" visit is are better representations of the point I was trying to make.

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I was just wondering what most people do. Do they take being taken advantage of or do they walk out?

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You know I'm just funning you!

As for me, I once waited about 4 hours at a large orthopedic office in BR. After two hours of moving from waiting room to xray to waiting room, I was about to leave when my inner George Costanza kicked in and I decided to stay just to tell the MD what a complete a-hole he was.

I did tell him face to face what an a-hole he was and he was none too impressed. I'm sure he knew and didn't really care. I never went back.