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What's a reasonable time to wait in a doctor's office?


Waiting game  

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Uh...the difference is that a doctor's emergency could be someone bleeding to death, not you being late to pick up your kid from soccer practice. But, as Harold says, the staff should keep you informed.

Soccer practice, what...are you kidding me? So bleeding is the only emergency? Seriously?

My emergencies involve kids passing out, fighting after school, reporting abuse, breaking up gang altercations, consoling a kid in tears, drug/alcohol use, parents pitching a nutty, health issues and general pandemonium.

But I'm made to wait.

Oh, that's fair. :rolleyes:

You're right; I don't know what I was thinking. Let the SOB bleed to death so you can get back to grading papers.

Who said grading papers was an emergency?

OK...so next time I'll just let the bloody gang fight continue that way I won't be late for my doctor appointment. Such nonsense, Mark.

Doctor's get emergencies. IF that was the case the office personnel should of informed you asap and you could have made an informed decision whether to stay or leave.

Wasn't an emergency in my case. In fact, the appointment was originally scheduled for two weeks ago and his office called me the day of the appointment to cancel because the doc had to go to the hospital.

While I was in the waiting room today, a young, attractive woman came in and was ushered directly to the inner sanctum. I assumed she was a salesperson.

My previous doctor was quite good about being prompt with appointments. Rarely more than a 5 or 10 minute wait. And once in the examining room, he was always pretty quick to come in. I was in this guy's examining room for almost 45 minutes -- and that's after more than a half hour wait in the empty waiting room.

On top of all that, he was unprepared for the specific nature of my visit once I finally got to see him.

He's a dip-shit and I'll be looking for a new doctor.

Good point.

Edited by GoodSpeak
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  • 2 years later...

Took mom to an orthopedic drs office for follow through from her shoulder surgery. Appt was for 11. I got her there by 10:45.

We sat for close to 45 minutes. Of course when mom feels the call of nature and goes to the ladies room in the reception area, only then do they call her name.

It was close to one p.m. by the time left

Not right.

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I find it difficult to believe that there are people in the U.S. willing to wait so long to see their doctor. I live in Canada where we have what many people in the States refer to as "socialized medicine" and I've never had to wait any longer than 20 minutes. If I had to wait longer than that I'd probably resort to what Chuck Nessa suggested and pee on the floor. Medicare works folks. Just ask anyone who posts here from outside of the the United States.

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'Socialized medicine' in Japan too. I go to a large hospital every month and their appointment system works very well, I never have to wait very long to see a specialist doctor.

If I had a minor complaint I'd go to the local clinic and would probably have to wait 10-15 minutes. Coincidentally, I had to make an emergency evening trip to the hospital on Wednesday. My bronchitis with complications suddenly flared up and I was coughing up copious amounts of blood. I waited ten minutes before seeing a respiratory specialist, X ray,CT scan and subsequent treatment were immediate. All was covered by National Health Insurance although I did have to pay a total of about $80, mainly for the CT scan. The Japanese medical system puts UK's to shame.

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I find it difficult to believe that there are people in the U.S. willing to wait so long to see their doctor.

A lot of the problem unfortunately stems from something that can't be directly fixed by legislative health care reform: the US doesn't have enough primary care doctors. Some of the reason why is that the AMA has endeavored to keep the overall expansion of medical schools much slower than it should be to keep up with population growth; this makes for extremely busy primary care doctors who make lots of money. Unfortunately (for me, anyway - in 8 years' time I may be one of those primary care physicians), what's really needed is more doctors who are still very busy but make significantly less money. Not an easy nut to crack policy-wise.

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