[Mikeod]

This is not to minimize or excuse your experience in any way, because it is unacceptable. But I thought I would give some perspective from the other side. I worked in a multidisciplinary medical group for 28 years. Here’s what I experienced.

Every time reimbursements were reduced by insurers, including the government, more patients had to be seen in a time period to cover our costs for the buildings, staff, equipment, insurance, utilities, and taxes. As a healthcare provider, we faced the dilemma of properly evaluating and treating our patients under the time constraints. I found it impossible to do so, as I frequently ran over my allotted time. That meant my next patient wouldn’t be seen on time, but the alternative would be to tell the person in front of me that I had run out of time and couldn’t finish addressing their concern, or making them reschedule to finish. Completely unacceptable.

Our medical group had a policy that any patient who presented to the front desk, whether they had an appointment or not would be seen, even if their need was not urgent. And we had urgent/emergent referrals from other departments as well. Add this to a schedule that was already full from start to finish of my day, and there is no way I could be on time for every patient. Yes, there were some patients that did not require the full allotment of time, but they were few and far between. As were no-shows, but they did help get us closer to on-time.

At the end of the day, we usually had seen double the number of patients normally scheduled for a full day. Lunch was usually a few bites between the last morning patient and the first afternoon patient.

When I had a patient complain about the wait, I certainly apologized because I know they had a life outside our offices that was being affected. But I always wondered what they think we were doing back there. Feet up, drinking coffee, and perusing the sports pages? In our dreams.

More likely your doctor is trying to juggle taking care of patients while taking care of consultations from others and trying to navigate the immense paperwork burden insurers and governments require.