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I feel a lot of appointment-based businesses are like this. They're trying to slot in as many services into one day as they can. Them making you wait is acceptable because they're with another customer (Though I'm sure they wanna wrap it up with them quickly too). You making them wait is unacceptable because that'll throw off their carefully timed appointment schedule.
It ain't great but that's the bitch of this damned money world huh
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.
but that would cut into profits of the people in charge
You mean the municipality, which you also are a part of, and pay tax to?
If the commenter you're responding to is from the US then no. We have privately owned for profit hospitals and often they're the only option in ones area.
Well, I can tell you the wait time is just as bad when it's covered by taxpayer money
You mean the municipality, which you also are a part of, and pay tax to?
There aren't very many hospitals or medical facilities owned by municipalities anymore. Most are either owned and operated by a private hospital network, or operate under a private trust.
The hospital I work at used to be owned by the state via the university, but our governor literally gave the campus away to a private trust that operates for profit. Super fun times.
There aren't very many hospitals or medical facilities owned by municipalities anymore. Most are either owned and operated by a private hospital network, or operate under a private trust.
Doctors offices are. Hospitals are funded by thr government. Either way paid for by your tax.
The hospital I work at used to be owned by the state via the university, but our governor literally gave the campus away to a private trust that operates for profit. Super fun times.
Unless you are American? Things are fucked there, that's no news. But most of Europe doesn't operate like that
Doctors offices are. Hospitals are funded by thr government. Either way paid for by your tax.
I think we may be talking about two different countries....
Unless you are American? Things are fucked there
Ahh, yep. Definitely different countries.
Quite a few doctor’s offices are owned or ran by a management group, partly to share or reduce their costs due to bureaucratic insurance companies and HIPAA compliance. Those same management groups use the doctors like a cash cow and attempt to shovel as many patients at them as they can because a venture fund is running the group behind the scenes.
Maybe in the USA. Dr Dropin is the only privately owned doctors office I know about in Norway, and they are generally not that often used
That's a funny name for an urgent care place, from the english "drop in appointment."
We have "legevaktå" for urgent doctor visits, so Dr Dropin isn't realøy needed for that either. Or anything for that matter. Which is way nobody uses it. It has to be paid fully out of your own pocket and it's expensive, and options exists.
I hear you, I just thought it was a funny name from my American perspective. Du lutger dritgodt.
Kamelåså
But the question I ask myself everytime is : how carefully timed is it really, if everyone has to wait so much ?
Dunno bout your PCP's office, but I know some hospital workers and it seems like there's a lotta time waiting for transport because they're understaffed, underpaid. Also, lotta piss and shit related delays. Sometimes those compound.
Believe it or not, lotsa "customers" in hospitals aren't, like, operating at peak efficiency. So there's a lotta small delays that occur for normal consequences of that. A fifteen minute delay here because a patient can't move very quickly. A ten minute delay as a patient thinks they have to pee but no one can find a bed pan and they can't use a toilet. Then they don't have to pee. A thirty minute delay because they can't find the right kind of stretcher for a particular patient. An hour delay because, while you were scheduled to get your outpatient test done at 4 P.M. sharp, someone else from the Emergency Room needed that sort of test done ASAP.
When that happens frequently, not scheduling time for it is shitty scheduling.
This is a different kind of issue, one I think a lotta people would be more familiar with. Management setting unrealistic goals and targets. Yes, those kinds of delays are so common they should be baked into the time expectations. However, that would result in fewer billable services forecasted per period. That bad. Want more money. While doctors offices should be immune to that kind of shitty behavior, they are still ultimately business and thus they gotta operate with that forever growing, profit forward behavior.
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.
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.
But should the same courtesy and understanding be extended to the customer?
Yes, which is part of why they end up running late.
I imagine it's unlikely the doctor's office "messed up the timing" such that the doctor isn't doing work and simply making you wait for funsies, but rather the patient before you needed an unanticipated amount of extra time for one thing or another. This is "acceptable" to the business as the doctor is still performing a billable service. It's not preferable, as it would be better if the doctor was performing MORE billable services per day, but acceptable. In hospitals, the number of services performed per day can be used as a KPI, for example. It's "unacceptable" to have the doctor waiting around not performing billable services as that doesn't make money.
If they're messing up the schedule in a way that you both have to wait and no one is performing a billable service, something has seriously gone wrong.
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.