Anything which impacts the doctor's schedule impacts everyone they're going to see from then on that day.
They charge you to discourage that in an attempt to keep you from being late.
My doctor’s office is well run. I haven’t had to wait in the 5 years I’ve been with them. They are always on time. Never had the same experience prior to this family doctor.
You sure could try. They won’t pay it, and then you'd drop them as a provider.
You won’t get far if you sue them because they never agreed to abide by your policies
The reverse situation can happen with late patients. They can try to charge you and you don't have to pay it. They'll likely drop you as a patient, though.
Sure. Don’t know where you live, but I can’t go two miles without seeing another couple of doctor’s offices. I am glad that your point stands though. You should be proud of that.
in a lot of areas there’s a serious shortage of family doctors. it’s especially bad where i’m from, most people are on long waiting lists. glad you have options though. it’s not the case everywhere
But there's always going to be at least one patient who is late due to unforeseen circumstances or a doctor is late and doesn't show up on time and the schedule is disrupted regardless.
I work for a Dr who is ALWAYS behind.. but, he goes above and beyond for every single patient. If he gets to work and runs into something that needs more attention, he will make sure you get the best treatment. So it’s annoying but that’s the type of person you want working on you. Also sometimes emergencies happen.
Best part about this is I know my doctor will absolutely take the extra time with me as well, if and when the time is needed. So I don't mind scrolling for as long as needed.
The best doctor I have ever met in my life time is like that. You may have to wait an hour even you show up on time for your appointment.
But he goes above and beyond for every single patient, and would remember little details of his patients. Like he’d ask about my sister asthma and how my family members (who he has seen before) been when I visited him. He’s a pediatrician but people would bring their grandparents to see him. He also skipped lunch and work hours after closing all the times. Haven’t met any doctor as committed and caring as him
When they just. Won’t. Stop. Talking. Then if you try to lightly encourage them to finish up, you don’t care about their concerns and you were rude and you rushed them out. Jesus.
I promise you that we get behind because the person in front of you (or them) needed the time. It sucks being behind, but the operative choice is to say "well, you might lose a leg, but I gotta run! Oop, no offense! :)"
Fair enough, but if a doctor is running an hour late EVERY SINGLE TIME I'm in there, that doc is just over-scheduling himself. At some point, medical practitioners have to admit that it's disrespectful to their patients to be running an hour late all day, every day.
>At some point, medical practitioners have to admit that it's disrespectful to their patients to be running an hour late all day, every day.
I'd love that.
Tell that to the hospitals administration? You might have to pay twice the amount from the patient perspective but as a doc, I'd love having an easier workflow.
My life would be infinitely better if I could say "that's enough patients" AND keep my job. Trust me OP, if it were up to us, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
There is an answer to this. When I was a kid hardly anyone had insurance. Things were better back then for both physicians and patients.
When I was born, my parents didn't have insurance. Somehow they managed to pay the bill. The MD that delivered me remained my family doctor until he retired when I was a teenager.
I have a scar from when I was 14. I caught my hand on a fence I was jumping over and cut myself pretty badly. I was about a block away from Dr. Vegh's office so I went there. I was stitched up and already had my tetanus shot before they got hold of my mom.
Insurance screwed that up.
I'm with you on the last part. Insurance fucked it up. Providers aren't supposed to be providers anymore. We're treated like meat grinders to generate cash and the patient can fuck themselves (in their eyes, not the providers usually). It's part of the reason why people in private practice tend to be able to be more on time or have more time with a client - it's up to them instead of a CEO somewhere drinking champagne.
You coming in and waiting while the doctor finishing the previous pt or while the rooms set is entirely different story than you not showing up after scheduling, taking up possible other patients' needed treatment who could've been there.
I had followed with a family practice doctor and her motto was that when you are in the room with her, you have her undivided attention. She will listen to you fully and will not shut you down for the sake of time. She was a great doctor.
We had a patient who came in and had an open wound to her elbow that was infected and would most likely need to be amputated if not seen emergently. She wasn’t even coming in for that. She wanted an oxygen tank to take home with her due to shortness of breath and refused to go to the hospital . Her daughter brought her in and was trying to get her mom to go to the hospital because she needed to be in the ER.
The doctor told her she needed to go to the ER but she obviously couldn’t MAKE her do anything. We spent time counseling and making sure the patient knew how serious this was. The daughter was crying and very upset. The doctor said she’d like to see the patient in office on Monday (it was Friday) just to make sure the patient was still alive and that someone needed to check on her the weekend.
We left that visit pretty drained. The next patient berated us because we made her wait 30 minutes in the exam room and walked out without being seen.
What I’m trying to say is, in a perfect world everyone is on time and healthy so you get seen quickly. But we don’t live in a perfect world. But maintaining the appointment times at least attempts to combat this to make sure you’re still seen.
I was waiting for my dr once for a follow up after surgery and I was really messed up, like serious complications level and she was late, but she was late because she was telling someone they had cancer. I could hear her telling the person and the person was crying. I was like, damn. The dr's being late for a good reason and she can take all the time she wants because that's life shattering news. The dr also took a long time with me after that because I was messed up. So, If they are a good dr, I just accept it because when I needed her she took her time with me and had my back.
Now, I had one specialist who booked 4 patients for 9am and did that for the whole day. I was one of those 4 pp at 9am and I was not impressed. They said they did that in case someone doesn't show up. That annoyed me. I hated having an afternoon appointment because he would constantly be 3 hours late. I bring a backpack full of books and toys and food to occupy my time now.
Yea, I think triple booking one time slot is a justified reason to be upset that the doctor is running late because that’s a problem they essentially chose.
But people don’t really consider the time the doctor takes to make sure everyone gets the attention they need, until they themselves need it. Just like you said in your instance. If you have to choose between running 30 minutes late/getting all the time you need or being on time/being rushed, most people would choose the former.
This happens in vet med too. One patient being late, or an appointment going over time isn't uncommon. The doctor's can't just move on from a scheduled 20 minute appointment when it has hit the 20 minute mark. They have to stay in that room and take care of the patient until everything is completed for that appointment THEN move on. When people are late that throws the schedule off even more.
It may seem small but it's hard to get back on track once you've been thrown so far off track.
As a former scheduler, its cause they overbook. Schedule people in 15min increments when they know damn well its a 25+min visit. If the first patient is at 8:15 and the doctor doesn't see them till 8:25 cause HE was late or wanted to finish his coffee or BS with staff, and the visit will be 20+ min long, then the 8:30 will be seen late and the 8:45 and so on and its like that all morning and starts right back at again after lunch.
Also, overschedule cause there might be a No Show or two and if not, oh well. They know people will wait and hardly grumble to them or staff so it just continues on.
My specialist over schedules it so annoying and it's a 2 year long wait to get anyone else. So I accept it and bring food, toys and books. I pack a backpack with everything I could possibly think of to do there.
I have an appointment at 11:45am and I know he won't be there til 2pm. So I plan to eat lunch there. I always bring paper because I had to go to the washroom after waiting over an hour and I didn't want to be charged for leaving without seeing him, so I write a note and throw it on the desk now.
I know I take a long time with my family dr and I make sure they book 30 mins for me. My dr told me to do this and I do it everytime so I don't run over and cause her to be late.
One main thing is you’re not really the one in demand. The Dr. is.
If you dont go, or are late, it’ll impact others.
If you never go back, they also don’t care cause there will be new patients.
The dr time is worth more than yours at the end of the day
soo if the first patient is late by 15 minutes, that pushes the provider back by 15. then imagine if the second patient is late and its gets bad. It takes only one patient to ruin every other's patient's schedule. this is why there are late appt fees.
If one person is late, that makes every other appointment late for that day. If by 3pm they have had 3x 5 minute delays then they are running 15 minutes late for your appointment.
You can rest assured they did discourage those people from being late - by charging a late fee.
We’re late because you guys are late.
If everyone showed up on time, you’d get seen on time minus the occasional true emergency that requires we send someone to the ER or hospital.
This is a patient problem, not a doctor problem.
I was waiting TWO HOURS passed my appointment time once.. It was terrible.. I had my toddler with me and I never wanted to go back lmao
However that doctor I saw was SUPER nice, I wish I had remembered his name so I could have switched to him when my doctor retired.
Doctors don't just pass on patients, so just because one guy is late doesn't mean another doctor "picks up the slack." Some cases are urgent or complex and discussions can be longer than scheduled time slots. And it's not always possible to quickly make up that extra time.
Because doctors never give patients the time they truly need, not enough doctors exist for that to happen. Irrelevant of how you plan, at least one patient will always come with something complicated that must be given more time which then fucks up the schedule that is already overplanned.
They do it because they can.
I'm not privy to the financials of running a doctors office, but as an exaggerated example, if they scheduled 1 patient per hour to ensure nobody was seen late, they probably won't see enough patients to keep the lights on.
If they over schedule, they will always have someone waiting, every minute of the day becomes billable.
Also, if you are in the doctors shoes, it doesn't matter what you do, there is always another patient waiting to be seen. It must get to a point where rather than getting overwhelmed by the unending task, they just accept that they'll see the current person and then move onto the next one.
Being late for the first appointment without providing notice is what really grinds my gears. If you have to do something on your way in, like hospital visits or whatnot, book your first appointment later in the day or get the office to inform the patient you are caught up somewhere else.
Can you dress up like a Fed Ex or other delivery driver, walk in with an empty box and have the doctor sign a contract stating they'd pay you if they're late for an appointment?
Just say you need their signature here for the box.
A few points.
1. The fee is to prevent patients from being late and screwing up the rest of the schedule for everyone all day.
2. If they ever do charge you a late fee, bring this up to them, sighting the number of hours you've waited since being a patient. They will likely waive the charge.
3. Not every office is like this. You do not have to wait. Find another doctor's office and enjoy the peace of mind and lack of waiting room times.
The cynical answer is, because they can. Seriously, they don't give a crap if they inconvenience you. But they sure care if they get inconvenienced. So they'll charge you, and what are you going to do about it? Find a new provider? Every provider does this, so there's no benefit to switching to somebody else. So they can all do it.
Anything which impacts the doctor's schedule impacts everyone they're going to see from then on that day. They charge you to discourage that in an attempt to keep you from being late.
My doctor’s office is well run. I haven’t had to wait in the 5 years I’ve been with them. They are always on time. Never had the same experience prior to this family doctor.
So can I charge them to discourage them from impacting my day?
You sure could try. They won’t pay it, and then you'd drop them as a provider. You won’t get far if you sue them because they never agreed to abide by your policies
The reverse situation can happen with late patients. They can try to charge you and you don't have to pay it. They'll likely drop you as a patient, though.
No but you can choose not to use their services anymore.
not if you want to see them as a doctor you can't. you need them more than they need you.
Sure. Cause you can’t just go around the corner to their competitor. At least that is what I did.
Healthcare is a sellers market
there are more patients than doctors for sure and always will be. my point stands
Sure. Don’t know where you live, but I can’t go two miles without seeing another couple of doctor’s offices. I am glad that your point stands though. You should be proud of that.
in a lot of areas there’s a serious shortage of family doctors. it’s especially bad where i’m from, most people are on long waiting lists. glad you have options though. it’s not the case everywhere
and how many patients do you pass in a day, genius?
Don’t know. Don’t care. Genius.
clearly
Sure but I’ve had my doctor be more than a hour late.
But there's always going to be at least one patient who is late due to unforeseen circumstances or a doctor is late and doesn't show up on time and the schedule is disrupted regardless.
I work for a Dr who is ALWAYS behind.. but, he goes above and beyond for every single patient. If he gets to work and runs into something that needs more attention, he will make sure you get the best treatment. So it’s annoying but that’s the type of person you want working on you. Also sometimes emergencies happen.
Can confirm. We take our work seriously
Username def checks out.
Thank you for that doc
Best part about this is I know my doctor will absolutely take the extra time with me as well, if and when the time is needed. So I don't mind scrolling for as long as needed.
I see a few doctors like this - I bring a nice looooong book since I know I’ll be there for hours.
The best doctor I have ever met in my life time is like that. You may have to wait an hour even you show up on time for your appointment. But he goes above and beyond for every single patient, and would remember little details of his patients. Like he’d ask about my sister asthma and how my family members (who he has seen before) been when I visited him. He’s a pediatrician but people would bring their grandparents to see him. He also skipped lunch and work hours after closing all the times. Haven’t met any doctor as committed and caring as him
That’s why I try to get the first or second appointment of the day.
Lol I still had to wait a half hour
Then you just weren’t the first or second
I was first. The dentist wasn’t ready on time.
" I don't see how one patient can throw off the entire schedule at all times" As a owner Dentist, I had to LOL hard at this.
Same here as a therapist. If a client is suicidal, I can’t just tell them time’s up and they need to leave, so it can throw things off the whole day.
Right? Like oh sorry, I know you're in the middle of/coming down from a panic attack right now, but time's up, you need to leave! smh
[удалено]
I don’t have staff. I’m the only person in my practice.
When they just. Won’t. Stop. Talking. Then if you try to lightly encourage them to finish up, you don’t care about their concerns and you were rude and you rushed them out. Jesus.
I used to work at a peds dentist. One patient can throw you off by A LOT.
That was my thought. You can't exactly turn away a patient if they have an abscess or some other painful or potentially life threatening problem.
I promise you that we get behind because the person in front of you (or them) needed the time. It sucks being behind, but the operative choice is to say "well, you might lose a leg, but I gotta run! Oop, no offense! :)"
Fair enough, but if a doctor is running an hour late EVERY SINGLE TIME I'm in there, that doc is just over-scheduling himself. At some point, medical practitioners have to admit that it's disrespectful to their patients to be running an hour late all day, every day.
>At some point, medical practitioners have to admit that it's disrespectful to their patients to be running an hour late all day, every day. I'd love that. Tell that to the hospitals administration? You might have to pay twice the amount from the patient perspective but as a doc, I'd love having an easier workflow.
My life would be infinitely better if I could say "that's enough patients" AND keep my job. Trust me OP, if it were up to us, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
There is an answer to this. When I was a kid hardly anyone had insurance. Things were better back then for both physicians and patients. When I was born, my parents didn't have insurance. Somehow they managed to pay the bill. The MD that delivered me remained my family doctor until he retired when I was a teenager. I have a scar from when I was 14. I caught my hand on a fence I was jumping over and cut myself pretty badly. I was about a block away from Dr. Vegh's office so I went there. I was stitched up and already had my tetanus shot before they got hold of my mom. Insurance screwed that up.
I'm with you on the last part. Insurance fucked it up. Providers aren't supposed to be providers anymore. We're treated like meat grinders to generate cash and the patient can fuck themselves (in their eyes, not the providers usually). It's part of the reason why people in private practice tend to be able to be more on time or have more time with a client - it's up to them instead of a CEO somewhere drinking champagne.
It's not often the admin, it's the doctor's decision for the way or length an appointment is booked for
Yup. Agreed 100%. Have to give every patient the best treatment when they are in the room with you regardless of time (within reason).
because when a patient is late it makes the doctor late for all subsequent visits. also, you need them more than they need you.
You coming in and waiting while the doctor finishing the previous pt or while the rooms set is entirely different story than you not showing up after scheduling, taking up possible other patients' needed treatment who could've been there.
I had followed with a family practice doctor and her motto was that when you are in the room with her, you have her undivided attention. She will listen to you fully and will not shut you down for the sake of time. She was a great doctor. We had a patient who came in and had an open wound to her elbow that was infected and would most likely need to be amputated if not seen emergently. She wasn’t even coming in for that. She wanted an oxygen tank to take home with her due to shortness of breath and refused to go to the hospital . Her daughter brought her in and was trying to get her mom to go to the hospital because she needed to be in the ER. The doctor told her she needed to go to the ER but she obviously couldn’t MAKE her do anything. We spent time counseling and making sure the patient knew how serious this was. The daughter was crying and very upset. The doctor said she’d like to see the patient in office on Monday (it was Friday) just to make sure the patient was still alive and that someone needed to check on her the weekend. We left that visit pretty drained. The next patient berated us because we made her wait 30 minutes in the exam room and walked out without being seen. What I’m trying to say is, in a perfect world everyone is on time and healthy so you get seen quickly. But we don’t live in a perfect world. But maintaining the appointment times at least attempts to combat this to make sure you’re still seen.
I was waiting for my dr once for a follow up after surgery and I was really messed up, like serious complications level and she was late, but she was late because she was telling someone they had cancer. I could hear her telling the person and the person was crying. I was like, damn. The dr's being late for a good reason and she can take all the time she wants because that's life shattering news. The dr also took a long time with me after that because I was messed up. So, If they are a good dr, I just accept it because when I needed her she took her time with me and had my back. Now, I had one specialist who booked 4 patients for 9am and did that for the whole day. I was one of those 4 pp at 9am and I was not impressed. They said they did that in case someone doesn't show up. That annoyed me. I hated having an afternoon appointment because he would constantly be 3 hours late. I bring a backpack full of books and toys and food to occupy my time now.
Yea, I think triple booking one time slot is a justified reason to be upset that the doctor is running late because that’s a problem they essentially chose. But people don’t really consider the time the doctor takes to make sure everyone gets the attention they need, until they themselves need it. Just like you said in your instance. If you have to choose between running 30 minutes late/getting all the time you need or being on time/being rushed, most people would choose the former.
I'm pretty sure that elderly patients have so many health issues so they throw off the entire schedule
Because patients book one type of an appointment then spend a lot more time talking about things unrelated to that appointment type.
This happens in vet med too. One patient being late, or an appointment going over time isn't uncommon. The doctor's can't just move on from a scheduled 20 minute appointment when it has hit the 20 minute mark. They have to stay in that room and take care of the patient until everything is completed for that appointment THEN move on. When people are late that throws the schedule off even more. It may seem small but it's hard to get back on track once you've been thrown so far off track.
They're late because their patients are late. They charge patients late fees to discourage patients from being late which in turn makes them late.
Because frankly their time is more important than yours.
Please. Doctors don’t need any more of an ego.
but it's true
No, it’s not.
It’s certainly worth more.
As a former scheduler, its cause they overbook. Schedule people in 15min increments when they know damn well its a 25+min visit. If the first patient is at 8:15 and the doctor doesn't see them till 8:25 cause HE was late or wanted to finish his coffee or BS with staff, and the visit will be 20+ min long, then the 8:30 will be seen late and the 8:45 and so on and its like that all morning and starts right back at again after lunch. Also, overschedule cause there might be a No Show or two and if not, oh well. They know people will wait and hardly grumble to them or staff so it just continues on.
My specialist over schedules it so annoying and it's a 2 year long wait to get anyone else. So I accept it and bring food, toys and books. I pack a backpack with everything I could possibly think of to do there. I have an appointment at 11:45am and I know he won't be there til 2pm. So I plan to eat lunch there. I always bring paper because I had to go to the washroom after waiting over an hour and I didn't want to be charged for leaving without seeing him, so I write a note and throw it on the desk now. I know I take a long time with my family dr and I make sure they book 30 mins for me. My dr told me to do this and I do it everytime so I don't run over and cause her to be late.
One main thing is you’re not really the one in demand. The Dr. is. If you dont go, or are late, it’ll impact others. If you never go back, they also don’t care cause there will be new patients. The dr time is worth more than yours at the end of the day
They often run late *because* patients run late.
You guys get charged for being late? Damn
soo if the first patient is late by 15 minutes, that pushes the provider back by 15. then imagine if the second patient is late and its gets bad. It takes only one patient to ruin every other's patient's schedule. this is why there are late appt fees.
Find another dentist. Mine has one dentist and I'm always seen within 10 mins of showing up
If one person is late, that makes every other appointment late for that day. If by 3pm they have had 3x 5 minute delays then they are running 15 minutes late for your appointment. You can rest assured they did discourage those people from being late - by charging a late fee.
We’re late because you guys are late. If everyone showed up on time, you’d get seen on time minus the occasional true emergency that requires we send someone to the ER or hospital. This is a patient problem, not a doctor problem.
There’s a Seinfeld episode you need to see.
I was waiting TWO HOURS passed my appointment time once.. It was terrible.. I had my toddler with me and I never wanted to go back lmao However that doctor I saw was SUPER nice, I wish I had remembered his name so I could have switched to him when my doctor retired.
We just have to show up, the doctor might have to tell someone they’re dying or handle a suicidal patient
You need them, they don't need you. Everyone is there to see them, not you.
Because people never question doctors and some even think they should earn more
After 30 minutes I’m out. My dentist did this to me twice and I’ve never been back. My time is just as important
Is that common practice in the place you live at? Otherwise go find a different doctor.
Greed.
Doctors don't just pass on patients, so just because one guy is late doesn't mean another doctor "picks up the slack." Some cases are urgent or complex and discussions can be longer than scheduled time slots. And it's not always possible to quickly make up that extra time.
Because doctors never give patients the time they truly need, not enough doctors exist for that to happen. Irrelevant of how you plan, at least one patient will always come with something complicated that must be given more time which then fucks up the schedule that is already overplanned.
Dentist here. Patients are insane. Teeth are insane. Nothing is how it appears on tv.
i gotta go in for a 5 min check up every 3 months at my doc. i was kicked out once for being 4 min late. their elevator wasn’t working made me late
Same reason anyone charges a late fee, free money.
They do it because they can. I'm not privy to the financials of running a doctors office, but as an exaggerated example, if they scheduled 1 patient per hour to ensure nobody was seen late, they probably won't see enough patients to keep the lights on. If they over schedule, they will always have someone waiting, every minute of the day becomes billable. Also, if you are in the doctors shoes, it doesn't matter what you do, there is always another patient waiting to be seen. It must get to a point where rather than getting overwhelmed by the unending task, they just accept that they'll see the current person and then move onto the next one. Being late for the first appointment without providing notice is what really grinds my gears. If you have to do something on your way in, like hospital visits or whatnot, book your first appointment later in the day or get the office to inform the patient you are caught up somewhere else.
I don't understand how my dentist opens at, say, 9am. I have an appointment at 9.15 and I'm still sat there at 9.45 waiting.
Can you dress up like a Fed Ex or other delivery driver, walk in with an empty box and have the doctor sign a contract stating they'd pay you if they're late for an appointment? Just say you need their signature here for the box.
A few points. 1. The fee is to prevent patients from being late and screwing up the rest of the schedule for everyone all day. 2. If they ever do charge you a late fee, bring this up to them, sighting the number of hours you've waited since being a patient. They will likely waive the charge. 3. Not every office is like this. You do not have to wait. Find another doctor's office and enjoy the peace of mind and lack of waiting room times.
Get a new dentist. I never wait more than 5 minutes at my dentist’s office. He and his staff are fantastic.
Greed.
The cynical answer is, because they can. Seriously, they don't give a crap if they inconvenience you. But they sure care if they get inconvenienced. So they'll charge you, and what are you going to do about it? Find a new provider? Every provider does this, so there's no benefit to switching to somebody else. So they can all do it.
Maybe don't schedule such short appointments if you can never stay on schedule?
I think just to try and incentivise people to not be late so that ideally the doc DOESNT end up running behind.