Quote:
Originally Posted by biker1
I am not insulting anybody - not sure where you got that from - reread my post. I am objecting to any office that books appointments under the assumption that patients have nothing better to do then wait. As I indicated, I understand that emergencies can happen. My point is there are practices that don't routinely waste patient's time. If people stopped accepting bad behavior perhaps it would become less common. My visits to Mayo (in Jacksonville, not Minnesota, which is about 2+ hours away) were for an orthopedic problem and there were two issues that drove me there: waiting beyond my scheduled appointment time at two sports medicine practices and their inability to diagnose and repair the problem. Neither of these issues existed at Mayo. This was when I lived closer to Mayo. I also know people who go there for what many might consider routine stuff because of the way the place is run (i.e. patient scheduling) and that really has nothing to do with how many people work there. The orthopedic guy saw me on time (for multiple consult, and pre- and post-op visits) because they schedule enough time for each appointment. The nature of the operation at the Mayo is such that they need to do this because often a patient will have multiple appointments in a single day and chaos would break out if each appointment was not taken on time.
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Again, Mayo having
29,000 hospital and clinic employees, 2000+ attending doctors, and 2000+ resident doctors certainly helps to make patient scheduling run like a well-oiled machine….
..with doctors
also having the benefit of
"enough time for each appointment" to observe, think and analyze properly the patient's condition.
Developer Gary Morse (R.I.P.) explained that dilemma best when introducing the TV Healthcare concept:
"Medicare is a lifesaving program but it has been set up in such a way that doctors are no longer able to care for us senior citizens in the same manner that we grew up with,” said Villages developer Gary Morse.
“
Medicare pays a doctor for every patient he sees, not how much time he spends with that patient. If the doctor sees 100 patients a day, he or she makes twice as much as seeing 50 patients.”
What is
not mentioned in that is that the reason the primary care doctors have to see more patients is to bring in enough revenue to pay the fixed overhead costs of a practice, while Medicare pays
less than cost, and private insurers pay accordingly.
http://www.thevillageshealth.com/art...20Hometown.pdf