Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeod
To provide a view from the other side.
The last 28 years of my professional life were spent in a medical group where everyone was salaried, so our income was not affected by how many patients we could cram into the day. My day was fully booked in advance, all day. We also had a policy that if someone presented to the clinic with a problem, they would be seen. If a patient was very late for their appointment, they would be seen. If a patient showed up on the wrong day, they would be seen. Added to those were patients sent to us by other departments. And, of course, we added our own patients who required follow-up even though there were no available appointments.
My early patients were generally seen on time. But, as the morning progressed, patients who required more time than was booked plus those other add-on patients caused me to be farther behind time. Most of the time I would finish my AM patients a bit after my PM patients were already checking in. A lunch break was a dream. Grab a bite of sandwich and a sip of a drink and get back to work. I would finish my PM patients well after the clinic closing time. Then I could embark on finishing my charting, preparing for the next day's patient load, read my messages, return phone calls from patients or colleagues, or go over lab or technician results.
Fortunately, my front office staff kept our patients informed of the wait.
Just to say that overbooking occurs for other reasons than revenue. Sometimes it's medically necessary.
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It seems to me that if your day is fully booked from the get-go, it's guaranteed that there will be no time to fit this in without causing patients to wait... "if someone presented to the clinic with a problem, they would be seen. If a patient was very late for their appointment, they would be seen. If a patient showed up on the wrong day, they would be seen. Added to those were patients sent to us by other departments. And, of course, we added our own patients who required follow-up even though there were no available appointments."
That's the same thing as overbooking, in my opinion. They shouldn't have booked your day so fully that you couldn't accommodate these other issues that pop up. Or else establish some rules that latecomers would not be seen, wrong-day patients would not be seen, patients sent by other departments scheduled in at another time. And limit the number of patients or appointments to accommodate these things.
There were many good doctors in my former state who simply got to the point where they would not accept new patients because they couldn't be accommodated.