How many other businesses would we be fine with operating like this?

Them making you wait is also often a consequence of earlier patients showing up late or an appointment requiring more time than expected.
The options to solve it are less patients per day, but that leads to even longer delays before you even get to your appointment date, OR more professional staff in the office....but that would cut into profits of the people in charge so is immediately off the table in this damned money world.
- In an ER, that's understandable, but in a general doctor's office there's no reason that Docs should extend one patient's appointment time just because they ended up late:
  "Oh, you scheduled a 30 minute consultation because of a sore knee but now you're asking for an ENT referral and blood work? You'll have to schedule another appointment to go over that, we're only covering what you told us the other day."
But the question I ask myself everytime is : how carefully timed is it really, if everyone has to wait so much ?
If it’s so carefully timed, why is it ok for them to mess up the timing? I’m a paying customer and I have shit to do, too. Maybe it’s not true in the case of doctors, but for other businesses, the only reason you’re able to have this business is because I’m here, paying money.
- Maybe it’s not true in the case of doctors, but for other businesses, the only reason you’re able to have this business is because I’m here, paying money.
  You hit the nail on the head there. Other businesses exist because they won your business in competition with other businesses. A doctor’s office exists because they got permission from the state to operate.
  The incentive structure is different, leading to different strategies being used to stay open
- Because life is unpredictable. They can't know in advance if they're going to have delays, so sometimes you just have to deal with it. This goes for any appointment based service.
I started to just leave when this happen. There are a lot of good people who follow the schedule properly, i take my business to them instead.
but that’s the bitch of this damned money world
This isn’t a result of money. It’s a result of having insufficient medical providers and them therefore being guaranteed business no matter how much they suck at customer service.
If money were the most powerful thing in medicine, new players would enter the market given its ridiculous revenue levels, and those new players would introduce competition and suddenly medical providers would be facing a world where their flow of customers is not guaranteed, and they would have to learn to respect and be grateful for their customers.
That’s how it would work if it were actually a “money world”. But medicine doesn’t run on money. It runs on government permission to exist, and that permission is always kept below demand levels, meaning once a provider gets a spot they don’t have to worry about someone else taking it.
Because money is fickle. To get money to come your way you need to provide good service consistently. If you stop, the money stops coming.
But a government license to operate is not fickle. Nobody can take that from you merely by offering better service. A government license to operate, in a market with severely limited supply, is a license to treat your customers like shit and see them crawling back for more.
- It runs on government permission to exist, and that permission is always kept below demand levels
  This is the first I've ever heard of this. Got anywhere I can read more about it? Sounds uncompetitive if not outright corrupt.

Airports work like this. You arrive two hours before takeoff only to find out like half an hour before takeoff that the flight is delayed because there's no plane.

I spent 3 days in an airport because storms near Chicago caused a ripple of delays and cancelations all over the country, I was constantly being told "okay your new flight leaves in 5 hours" and I was in a city over 100 miles away from home with no transportation.
Overall I had tickets and replacement tickets for 9 flights. Honestly given some of the times we found out there was no plane, I didn't believe we would get to board even as they were calling boarding groups.
- 100 miles from home
  Bro, you could have walked home in that time. Benefit of restrospect.
My favorite was receiving a text notification at 5:30AM thar my 8AM flight was canceled. Ruined my entire vacation
Better to be stuck on the ground than to be stuck in the air in a plane that needs maintinence, or in bad weather.
I was on a lay over and was lined up ready to board and they cancelled the flight. Was told to go to customer service to find another flight. Conveniently two other flights were canceled around the same time so they were over 900 people in the customer service line. After waiting about 45 minutes in line and moving about 20 spots forward and asking multiple airline employees that had no idea what was going on. I get a text message that my flight had been rebooked to a flight that had been delayed earlier in the day and it has finally showed up but it's leaving in 15 minutes and it's in a different terminal. I booked it over there and made the flight. Anyway, it was a mess. Extremely unorganized, handled terribly and it was just an all around piss poor experience. Did I get compensation for the inconvenience and time wasted? Of course not. Airline are allowed to charge hundreds of dollars and fuck things up without consequences.
There is no plane because everyone on board the inbound flight died when your 737 MAX crashed because of an MCAS failure and also all the bolts fell off.

Uhm, if 6 patients were 10 minutes late each, you'd be 10 minutes late total.
- Hey he's a doctor not a mathtor
- It actually really fucks you up. You end up rereading charts and notes because your wires keep getting crossed.
And what about the doctors who are half an hour late for the very first appointment of the day. How is that possible?
- If they're on call it might just be they just finished working on 4 am in the morning due to some emergency. Anything is possible ¯(ツ)/¯
Not to mention people would arrive at their 10 minute appointment with a list of 5 completely separate medical issues that they'd been saving up for months. So either you do a full history, examination, diagnosis and treatment plan +/- prescription in 2 minutes for each problem, or the 10 minute appointment just becomes a 20 minute appointment. And then you document everything in your lunch break or after you're supposed to have gone home 🙃
Here in the US, the last time I went to a doctor's office they had signs posted saying that those under free healthcare could only discuss a single issue per billed visit. Which sure, saves the medical staff a ton of time and scheduling problems, but also means the most vulnerable (and least able to take time off to visit the doctor) have to prioritize health issues and let minor ones go untreated/undiagnosed until they become major ones.
Healthcare is a mess.
- How do you even know what a single issue is?
  How the heck are you supposed to know if your abdomen hurting, and shitting blood are related? Is the itching related? How about the Hives, or the headaches?
  Apparently you're the doctor now.
10 minute appointment
5 completely separate medical issues
Something, somewhere, isn't working in public health.
- Yes public funded health care has many issues, congratulations on being so astute. Where I live you can book longer appointments if you need them, you just have to actually ask for the extra time. People often have let small issues add up before getting them sorted because procrastination, small issues that most people with private healthcare systems could not afford to go to the doctor to have checked out.
  Most important of all, when someone feels ill they don't have to factor a medical bill into the equation when deciding whether or no they should go to the hospital or possibly fucking die.
I'd see about a discount for those on time, reward the desired behavior.

Because every patient before you was 10-30 minutes late for their appointment so now you have to wait an hour.

Or, more likely in my experience, the doctors office is overbooked and anything more than 10-15 min/patient puts the whole schedule behind.
- Not really overbooked, so much as you put down you had a sore throat which takes about 10-15 minutes but now you're here can you have your ear looked at and also your stomach hurts but it started about six years ago and you think you might have ADHD so could you get a referral for an evaluation?
  And it's like that every other patient.
Once I had to wait more than 30 minutes even though I was the very first patient in the morning.

At one point I setup an appt with a doctor, 3 weeks set date, and to be the first one in the morning, like 9AM, he cannot be late, right? I left at 11:30AM without seeing him.

Jeez, how is that even possible? Like did some other asshole sneak in and get seen for some crazy disease somehow?
- He is a surgeon and was in the hospital nearby, I guess saving life, so it's ok :)

The last time I took my daughter to the doctor's, we had the 8:30am appointment. First of the day.

I was feeling pretty optimistic that we would be in and out by 8:45.

So we arrive at 8:20 and take our seats in the waiting room. 8:30 rolls around, no call. 8:40, no call. 8:50 no call. At 8:55 a side door opens and 8 doctors stroll out with coffees in hand and make their way to their individual consulting rooms.

At 9:10 we got the call to go in.

I get that they might need to have a morning meeting to get setup for the day, but 8 doctors each wasting 40 minutes, and the entire appointment book playing catch-up for the rest of the day, seems like a colossal piss take.

Why not, like, have your meeting earlier.....?

Dickheads. My grandpa was right back in the 90s when he said the country is going to the dogs. A Tory! In a way I'm glad for him that he isn't around to see how badly his descendants are getting rinsed.

Their time is actually more important than yours

I'll have you know I have 27 cats at home which depend on me. My time is precious
- Just bring them with you, duh.

I think veterinary offices are the only places I can understand. Everyone there is underpaid, working hard, enduring trauma, and doing it because they love animals. Although I've never seen them get upset at someone for being late!

veterinary offices are the only places I can understand. Everyone there is underpaid, working hard, enduring trauma, and doing it because they love animals.
Boy do I have some news about basically everyone in healthcare......
Pretty much everyone is making less than previous generations, and that's not even accounting for inflation. I am a specialty provider and the salary for my position hasn't increased in decades, all while licensing and education costs have skyrocketed.
Healthcare isnt the get rich quick scheme people seem to believe it is. It's basically hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for near a decade of school, just for the privilege to basically work for free for several years.
Pretty much any person in healthcare under 40 is there because they love people and want to help them. Nowadays it's just too difficult and thankless of a job for any other real reason other than empathy. There are plenty of easier and more profitable ways to make money.
The reason you may have experiences that run contrary to this is the same reason you've prob had to wait in a room for over an hour. The providers are not the ones in charge of their schedules, and are probably experiencing burnout.
The people making the schedules have no idea how much time is appropriate for the patient care the person is coming in for. All they know is management wants less down time and faster turnaround. So they just pile as many patients as they can schedule, and then utilize the patient's understandable agitation as a stick to prod the provider along.
- Did you respond to the wrong person?
  "Healthcare isnt the get rich quick scheme people seem to believe it is. It’s basically hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for near a decade of school, just for the privilege to basically work for free for several years."
  I never said this nor do I think this, I'm so confused lol. OP asked about other services that are similar, and I responded.

I had this happen when I was at my Dr's appt. I needed a script for oxygen. Prior to that, I watched several people walk in, get called to go to one of the examination rooms almost immediately. The thing is that each one of the other patients was obviously in far worse shape. When I finally was seen, my Dr started apologizing profusely. I told her that I know what triage means and to not worry about it. Stuff happens. If I was one of the others, I would want relief too.

This is the reality. A doctor is trying to see as many patients as possible who want to be seen. Not every condition requires the same amount of time. They do their best to estimate, but ultimately, if a doctor is willing to give you extra time, then the price is usually paying it forward by waiting longer in the waiting room for fellow patients. If you're late when they are ready, then you drop the efficiency of the entire day. If you're ready when they're not, well, yes, their time is actually more valuable in this case.

Reading the comments in this thread just indicates to me that we need more doctors. The supply of doctors is definitely artificially restricted

For real. At least in the US medical school is incredibly expensive (on top of undergrad being really expensive too). Going to school is a huge risk, because if you find you can't handle it half way through, you've got all that debt,without the job to actually pay it. We've got so many incredible potential doctors and nurses that just can't afford to go to school
- It also takes 2x longer than most of the world to get licensed.
Yep, that AMA is proof the licensing organization shouldn't also be the union.
We need to pressure schools to open more seats.

Our patient visits are set as 15 minute slots standard.

This isn’t enough time to practice good medicine for anything much more than something like a flu or strep throat. How does one squeeze in an entire rooming process followed by a solid HPI, physical, poc testing and then plan review with pt in 15 minutes?

They don’t.

But with how medicine works (in the US) it’s the how clinics make enough money to stay open.

For clarity: I work at a Federally Qualified Health Center, not a for profit clinic.

But with how medicine works (in the US) it’s the how clinics make enough money to stay open.
This is the truth. PCP offices in particular have razor-thin margins and insurance reimbursement goes down every year while supply, fixed, and staff costs go up every year. This is an insurance industry and healthcare system problem. Your doctors' offices are just doing everything they can to stay open.
- Fortunately CMS is rethinking the role of primary care and realizing we can save money if we're able to provide high quality preventive care like we're supposed to. PCP service payments (RVUs) are up 18% since 2020 which has been a long time coming. Unfortunately physician pay is down vs inflation over the last few decades but thank Christ administration salaries are way, way up over the same timeframe.
- Agreed.
  There’s an argument that more appointment slots means more access but if it’s access to poor quality medicine what’s the point?
- Buck wild. Seems like a bad trend for quality care.
  On the one hand, yeah holy shit.
  On the there, though, eye exams aren't exactly something that couldnt be administered in a group setting to help speed things along a bit
  In my ideal world they'd have a machine for it at Walmart like they do blood pressure that just flips the prescriptive lenses in front of you and asks all the same questions, then sends the results to an optometrist to confirm
One of my doctors clearly has it this way. When I'm there in the afternoon, there are dozens of people waiting because each person takes longer than the appointed slot and so everyone moves back in time... but at least they have good managing there and the receptionist will tell me when I arrive whether it will be 30 or 50 minutes to wait.
My eye doctor, on the other hand... I arrive 15 minutes before my appointment and there are only three other people there, two of whom arrived at the same time as me. How the hell does it take an hour for me until I can go in? What are they doing in there that every patient takes 20-25 minutes for an eye exam?

The best way to fix this is to cancel the appointment if they make you wait. If enough people did this the clinic loses money which should cause change. Unfortunately, patients are largely a captive clientele, having already waited months and canceled work and with few if any alternative providers.

The next best thing is much more realistic. Plaster the internet with reviews complaining of the wait. If your doctor (or more likely your doctor's employer) does not respect your time, let everyone know.

Many of the other comments are also correct. I have worked in clinics in government, military, academic centers, venture capital, physician owned, and even free community health centers, all in the USA. Doctors running late is going to happen. I've kept patients waiting while in the operating room, while telling someone they have cancer or are losing a limb, and by my burnt out underpaid government scheduler incompetently overbooking. I will also tell you that when I have at least a little control over my own schedule, I've never made a patient wait an hour, even with the above happening. It can be done, it just isn't because for decades timeliness has not been a financial incentive.

Make it one. Name and shame on google, yelp, zoc doc, wherever. Do it gracefully and sensitively, recognizing that there is a high chance the delay is not the doctor or nurse's fault. Done right, you'll do them a favor when their employer feels the sting of lost patients.

You need a doctor, not otherwise.
Man, I resonate with the meme here in the UK where it's free to go to the doctors but HAVING TO PAY FOR IT AT THE SAME TIME?!
Except then they send you a bill for services not rendered and act like that's legitimate.
aaa
- If they do not have your SSN - and why would they? Leave that shit blank on the forms.
  They can't do much other than refuse to let you book again.
I joined a private medical group that has annual fees, purely to avoid this shit. They don't overbook. I've never had to wait, unless I got there early (and even then sometimes they were happy to see me early).

Don't forget waiting for hours, going to the toilet for a leak and returning to see you've been skipped

I told my wife, the day I see an actual fucking doctor when my appointment time is, I'll either die of shock or but a lottery ticket.

In my experience you're lucky if some not-an-MD is checking your weight and blood pressure within half an hour, but if you're five minutes late they're sending you a bill for them doing literally nothing and canceling you entirely. I've never seen anybody so high on their own fucking importance while at the same time showing not the slightest smidgen of respect for the time of anyone else unfortunate enough to have to interact with them.

I wish I had a job where I could fuck up the timing of every single task every single day that consistently and still be employed. Not that I would, because I recognize that other people's time matters.

Top tip, book the first appointment of the day (specifically request this) You'll almost always be seen on time.
Now please don't die of shock now you know this. I hope you survive
- Did that.
  Doc was 45 minutes late to work.
  She was a nice lady but that had me fuming.
  I then had to wait two hours for a taxi. I was in tears from anxiety by the time I got home, then had to go back to work.
  Luckily I am WFH so no one could see me crying.
  That was a bad day!
- I was told to try this by an RN but the issue I need to see a doctor for is sleep apnea so that's out the window.
To be fair you don't need a doctor to check your vitals and ODs are doctors too.
Your doctor is doing doctor things while the RNs are performing their functions? I'm shocked.
But if you want a better experience, find a good small non-chain urgent care office in a subsurb that doesn't take insurance. You'll pay more and get the experience you want, in my experience. But the RN is still going to come in first and perform their functions for a minute before the doctor comes in 5 minutes later.

Try 3 hours, it's the reason I bought a miyoo mini plus, just to take it to doctor's offices.

wow, that looks cool
I got a gamesir x2 pro for my appointments, changed my life, carry the little fucker everywhere now.

I had this discussion recently and my friend pointed out that this also happens with utility workers on in-house visits, I guess cause of the demand there is on their work. At least where I live.

But I can't take it with doctors man. Also it's the only business where you can pay to get insulted or diminished, yet not diagnosed, repeatedly from different specialists (true story)

I had appendicitis for 18 months.
I'm not going to kill that doctor. But he is 45 years older than me and some fresh graves just scream out to be pissed on.
Highfalutin fuck with his own practice and a fireplace in the lobby couldn't diagnose and treat what a chick in her 20s with a nose ring working the night shift at Halifax caught in an hour.
I'm not going to kill that doctor. I ain't gonna go looking for him. If I encounter him again and he isn't cold in his urn, I'm gonna hurt him in a way medical science can't fix.
- What?

How many other businesses would be fine with operating like this

The Apple Store, for starters.

Ticketmaster, also, too.

Went to my appointment Friday, was told my primary stopped working Fridays 2 months ago. They were the one who scheduled the appointment 3 months ago

Last time i was a the doctors office, my appointment was at 11. At 11:45 i was still waiting and i heard them laugh in the break room 😑...

My favorite was my psychologist who knows I'm autistic and routine and schedule is everything to me. Then doesn't show up for 30 minutes and then call me saying their previous appointment went on longer than expected... this happened almost every other appointment. Eventually i quit because it gave me more anxiety and stress than the trauma's i was dealing with. 🤦🏻

"My time is important, your time is unimportant".

I dunno what your job is but a doctor's time is more important than my time for sure.
- Sure, but all the more reason to keep track of how late they're running and inform patients accordingly. If the doc is running an hour late, shoot me a text that says that.

Your guesses might be right, but most likely you are talking about the questionnaires about your medical history and what's called the "review of systems".
In the US, medicare and most other insurances require those questions be asked every visit, however stupid that feels. Since your doctor may only get 10 minutes face to face with you, most of us will have an assistant or a paper ask those questions, so that we can say it was done but still have as much time as possible to talk about the more meaningful stuff.
Some places do it better than others. Usually, though, the form is hard to follow and photocopied to the point of total illegibility.

At the office I worked at, the receptionist was underpaid and didn't give a fuck, and the manager was 100% revenue motivated and didn't give a fuck. The MD had tunnel vision on his work and couldn't be bothered to get his staff under control. Also everyone was high. 🤷‍♀️

It it was only an hour ⏳💀

Inland Revenue has entered the chat

I have a few doctors like this.

One in particular, you have to schedule your whole day for the appointment. Even if it's virtual.

There's the call for the copay, the call for the vitals, the call with the midlevel, then the call with the doctor. I've waited over 5 hours just for the doctor before.

My next appointment with that doctor is after business hours. I am not looking forward to that late night.

Why would you stay with that doctor? Switch
- I would, but the only other doctor available who treats my condition in my area won't see me because I already saw the first doctor.

A previous provider of mine changed locations. The front office staff took 2 months to tell patients. We showed up for an appointment we had made a month earlier and they laughed at us. Easiest decision I have ever made.

An hour? Try three to four hours. I'd pay through the nose to only wait one hour past appointment time.

What country and private or universal healthcare/insurance?
- Flanders, Belgium. Universal, but specifically psychological/psychiatrist appointments, since they've been overbooked since over a decade and the situation keeps getting worse instead of better (more patients, less doctors, less budget). I have little doubt it's being left to fail deliberately by our very right-leaning government. Private entities can help you almost immediately but you'll pay prices out of the range of most working people.

I don't put up with it lol. If someone is 15 late for an appt, I reschedule. Black and white. No exceptions.

Haha good meme. Good work buddy I like it :)

Medical care suffers from the same thing all heavily-regulated quasi-markets suffer from: severely restricted supply.

This results in:

Insufficient competition
High prices
Low quality work
Low quality customer service
Low availability and hence queueing

People complain that medicine should not be a free market, and look how bad the free market screwed up American medicine but we do not have a free market in medicine.

If we did have a free market, supply would be allowed to organically grow to match demand, introducing competition and solving all of the above problems.

But we artificially suppress supply of medicine and medical services. We call it regulation, and sure maybe it’s got its reasons for existing, but the natural and predictable result of such heavy-handed regulation is a lack of supply, leading to a lack of competition, leading to a lack of quality.

If we did have a free market, supply would be allowed to organically grow to match demand, introducing competition and solving all of the above problems.
No, health care companies would just be more “free” to make choices that cause people to die because it is more profitable.
Full stop that is the only real difference you would see.