Stop me if you’ve read this before…..
Did I already go on my rant about doctors appointments?
About a thousand years ago I went to the doctor. I had an appt. for 9:00 a.m. At around 9:30 I started getting mad and asked them what was going on. At 10:00 I called Jen and told her I was mad. At 10:30 I told the people at the desk that I was leaving…what happened after this made me think about how everyone is so programmed by circumstances that we no longer see what’s wrong when it is wrong. The people at the desk were astonished that I would leave. They couldn’t believe that I was leaving and were yelling at me to come back as I headed out the door. I called Jen and told her my story and she said “You can’t leave…it’s always like that at the doctors office".” Why? Would you go to an appointment anywhere else and wait for an hour? Hair dressers? Here’s a good example: Would you sit for an hour waiting for someone you had planned to meet for dinner or lunch? No way. You would think they were killed or maimed in a horrible accident if they didn’t arrive in the first half hour…or they would have called. There’s another difference. Have you ever waited past the appointment time at the doctor and had someone come out and tell you they are running behind or give you an update? Not on your life.
Everyone I talk to about this immediately starts making excuses for the doctor.
“Maybe there was an emergency” – Seriously. How many emergencies do you think happen in the course of a day at the general practitioners? I’ll tell you how many. Zero. For the sake of argument let’s just say there was an emergency. If your schedule is so tight that one event throws off the entire day and makes my 9:00 appt. a 10:30 appt. then we have bigger problems that I thought.
The reason that this problem continues to be a problem is for the following reasons:
1. – There is no customer service score or threshold for the medical community. There is no “on time” score for your doctor. Would you go to a doctor that had a 1 star customer service score and a 5% on time appt. rating?
2. – No one complains about this and if they do who do they complain to? The doctor? They have zero control over any of it. Their insurance company? Good luck with that. Right. There’s no one to complain to.
3. – People are scared of making their doctor mad. You don’t care if you make Tires Plus mad because they can’t get your car fixed in a reasonable time, you will just go down the road to Tires Extra Plus. People won’t even consider leaving their doctor. They have all the papers and all their “stuff”. Plus..they “know” us.
Ok…I’m done. Next time your are waiting for your doctor in the waiting room, and then again in the secondary waiting room, you can remember that I’m mad too.
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