Please don't use the Mayo Clinic as an example of how your local physician office should operate. Do you want your local MD to "squeeze" you in if you are ill? Try to walk in at Mayo... Here is what their website says about walk ins
Can I get into Mayo Clinic without an appointment?
Mayo Clinic in Rochester accepts "walk-in" patients. This method, however, is not encouraged, and you should be prepared to wait several days to a week or longer, depending on appointment cancellations and others waiting for an appointment. Waiting times tend to be shorter in winter.
So walk in is only ok in Rochester MN, and be prepared to wait several days to be seen. If you'd like Rochester MN in the winter the wait is shorter.
However, if the office is open at 9 AM the doctor should be there before 9 AM. Here is where it gets difficult. If your appointment is 9 AM does that mean you should arrive at 9 AM? If so then there is time checking in, getting your vitals done, nurse doing a brief history, updating your chart. You are not going to be ready until 9:15 or later. If as the 9 AM patient you show up at 9:10 figuring the doctor is always a bit delayed, now you have messed up everything. So should the office tell you 8:45 when they really don't expect you to be ready for the doctor until 9:15 just to be sure you are on time? Should they turn you away if you are 15 minutes late so as not to allow you to inconvenience all the later patients? Some practices wave schedule. Tell 4 patients to come at 9 AM and don't schedule the next one until 10 AM, 4 more. That way you even out the early and the late people but likely see your 4 patients in that hour. Now if all 4 are there at 9 AM and it is the "first" appointment of the day, somebody is going to be the last of those 4 to be seen, and be upset.
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