re: Why is scheduling an appointment with a doctor so damn difficult?

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Manager/Admin

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Oh....

You have to wait 2 months to see a fricking doctor? Jesus christ, aren't medical type situations where you'd need a doctor supposed to be time sensitive?

I'm genuinely asking, I haven't gone to doctor in probably 7 years.

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You have to wait 2 months to see a fricking doctor? Jesus christ, aren't medical type situations where you'd need a doctor supposed to be time sensitive? I'm genuinely asking, I haven't gone to doctor in probably 7 years

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OP probably has a back, knee, elbow or shoulder complaint, just like everyone else. Not exactly life and death ailments. That's why the wait is so long.

I am about to switch doctors because of this. If I have to schedule an appointment with my family doctor, I can't get an appointment until at least 2 weeks. During the fall I had a spider bite on my elbow, it ended up getting really infected & I had to go to a walkin clinic to get it drained and patched up. I was told to schedule an appointment with my doctor in the next week so he can make sure it is healing, etc.

When I called, I couldn't get an appointment until 3 weeks later. I explained my situation to the woman and told her that I was told to have my doctor look at it within the next week and if there was any way I could get squeezed in. She told me "this is flu season, we are busy". I was taking antibiotics and doing everything I was suppose to and about a week and a half later it was starting to look better, by the time my appointment came around it was much better so I cancelled.

While I rarely go to the doctor, the few times I had to go to him, I waited in the room for like 20 mins, he came in and less than 10 mins he was finished.

I do have to get meds refilled every 3 months and even that is a cluster frick. It all depends on which person answers the phone when I call. It seems like there are one or two ladies that when they answer, they ask you the standard questions then say "ill let him know", two days later I call back and someone else answers. They tell me "I don't see that anything has been posted" so I have to go through the process of waiting for it to get approved, etc.

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appointment specialists

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Is this the new PC term for secretary?

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OP probably has a back, knee, elbow or shoulder complaint, just like everyone else. Not exactly life and death ailments. That's why the wait is so long.

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hhhmmm, well let's say for instance OP tore a ligament in his knee and requires surgery. Now the doctor can't see him for 2 months to diagnose this, so the ligament starts healing, causing further complications with repair and recovery. What then?

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hhhmmm, well let's say for instance OP tore a ligament in his knee and requires surgery. Now the doctor can't see him for 2 months to diagnose this, so the ligament starts healing, causing further complications with repair and recovery. What then?

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Well physicians triage patients. They know what type of complaints they need to see immediately and what can wait.

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Before I can finalize the appointment, she informs me there is an outstanding balance on my account and that I cannot schedule any appointments until the balance is taken care of. I had no idea what balance she was referring to, but I allow her to transfer me to the billing department to get things fixed.

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I can guarantee after your next appointment they will frick your bill up. Why is it so hard to file a claim with your insurance and have you pay the difference. my wife and I are still fighting a bill from February they still do not have coded correctly.

Time to find a new doctor or start scheduling your appointments at least 3 months in advance. The other thing you could do is find out what time the last appointment of the day is and show up at that time on any day you want to. Go to sign in like you have an appointment and when they say you don't swear up and down that you do and you made it months in advance because you are leaving the state for a few months. With 6 people handling the appointments its not like they are going to not see you and if you show up at the end of the day you wont have to wait forever.

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Why the frick can't you schedule an appointment online with most medical clinics?

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It's not exactly easy, nor is it practical, for a privately owned medical office to buy the software to get online appointments going. And it really isn't a priority for most either, I'd guess. Part of the reason you got the run around is because the scheduler is probably trained to book certain appointments at certain times. Doctors have to be efficient...routine visits at x time, procedures at y time, etc. If you go online and schedule your own, it makes that type of organization impossible, which would slow the doctor down even more, which would make you wait even longer, which would lead to you creating another thread bitching about that on TD. If you want online scheduling, go to a big box operation like Ochsner. But then you'd have to deal with all of the issues of dealing with that sort of medical care.