I postponed a visit for months because of covid and Quarantäne. At thr moment, it seemed like a really important visit.
Almost lost the turn, commuted through the whole city… the doctor arrived 2,5 hours late. She was not even sorry.
Last visit, the woman at the desk told me my doctor was running an hour behind. I knew that meant I’d be waiting closer to two hours. I sighed, sat down, thought for a moment, and went back to the desk to reschedule the appointment. I did the doctor and me a favor. She got a free spot in her schedule to catch up, and I didn’t need to sit around for two hours.
A few “five minutes late” appointments go by, and before you know it they’re an hour behind! It’s crazy
Let’s blame them.
Maybe, and I don’t doubt that urgent appointments happen and they try to squeeze them in and I understand that, one day it might be me.
But talking specifically about my kid’s pediatrician and my wife’s obstetrician, we several times were scheduled for a specific time, and we came to learn we were scheduled in 10 to 15 minutes windows, and most times the appointment would last for at least 20 to 30 minutes.
So they do have some blame, and they charge too much not to have some semblance of time keeping.
I’d rather wait for the doctor that takes its time to diagnose everyone than the one that is always on time
Bold of you to assume they’re not just taking in way too many
customerspatientsWhat are they supposed to do? Turn away sick people?
“Sorry you think you have an infection. Just deal with it for a few more weeks until I have time”
Speaking from experience, we’re an hour behind because 20 people were 5 minutes late
My mother does two things whenever I take her to a doctor’s appointment:
- Complain to everyone if she has to wait even a few minutes for her appointment to start
- Endlessly ask the doctor pointless questions, repeat herself over and over again with the preface “and as I said”, and generally babble so her own appointment goes long past its scheduled length
A huge number of Gen X and boomers have a strange idea that you’re supposed to distrust and challenge doctors constantly. Like they’re going to try to cheat you or something.
How does that make sense lol. If everyone is 5 minutes late, then the whole schedule shifts back 5 minutes. The only way it builds into an hour long wait is if they’re being overbooked on an over optimistic schedule. Hoping they’ll only take X minutes but they actually take X+5, for example.
I’ve had them be running late when i’m the first friggin’ appointment
Thats just the doctor getting stuck at starbucks on their way in.
And definitely not from the over scheduling. Yep definitely not that.
Or dealing with someone’s life threatening emergency and pretending it’s people being late.
It is really funny to me that, in general, medical professionals in the US still think people do or should broadly respect them.
… Why?
Nobody cares that you’re just following orders, that’s not a very good excuse.
Nobody cares that you have a boatload of debt you need to pay off… most people do these days.
None of that gives ya’ll societal permission to engage in possibly the most elaborate gaslighting fraud system that humanity has ever produced.
Ya’ll are supposed to have ethics, ‘first, do no harm’, yet you violate this routinely as a matter of course, “professionally”.
With few exceptions, you’re all hypocritical liars with God complexes.
You should know, better than most, that your intentions do not matter at all, outcomes do.
The doctor’s office when they’re an hour behind because people keep coming in late.
My mum is a nurse. From what she tells me, almost all wait times are caused by the doctors who book too many patients and appoint each patient too little of time.
I’ve had appointments at opening time and they’re still half an hour late. Doctor strolling in 15 minutes after the appointment time.
That’ll be $47,000
As a Canadian I genuinely can’t tell if this is an exaggeration or not.
Depends on about a billion of different factors, but the answer could range from “yeah it’s an exaggeration” to “its actually a pretty generous estimate”
I have a “fun” american anecdote for you then! The office that gave me crap for being late a while back is also coincidentally the expensive one.
I’m on a biologic medication that I get every month via IV. I get the infusions at a cancer treatment center at the local hospital. The chairs are comfy and the nurses are amazing. They will actually give me free snacks and drinks too. I am typically there for about two hours.
The amount they charge my insurance company? About a new BMW.
What my insurance company actually pays them? Surprisingly, about a new Honda!
Did you have to pay the difference out of pocket? Or is there a discounted price for insurance providers to pay that laypeople aren’t approved for?
Whenever I go to the doctor, hospital, etc I just give them my health card (which is freely provided to every Canadian citizen) and they punch in the number into their system, then that’s that. I don’t have to pay or contact insurance or anything. Some stuff doesn’t count such as the dentist but dental care is almost always provided through work benefits.
Oh boy, I get to do more Freedumsplaining!
The luxury sport sedan price is the fake sticker price they bill up front.
The sensible commuter sedan price is the secret agreed-upon price that the insurance actually pays out to them.
The out of pocket costs are a completely separate number, where the individual is responsible for all the costs until they hit their deductible (and sometimes pay a percentage for a while until they hit a second complete out of pocket limit).
For some of us, however, there is a silver lining to this shitcloud. Obviously when a 2-hour stint in a chair gets paid out actually for real at tens of thousands of dollars, that money is not going to the wonderful nurses poking my arm and checking on me. Therefore, it is very much in the best interests of the pharmaceutical shareholders that I do not stop my treatment just because I can’t afford it. So these companies have copay assistance programs that will pay your out of pocket costs, with no income threshold.
So the reward that I get for having a health condition is… I effectively get decent healthcare coverage as an American. For 11 months of the year. If something bad happens in early january it can cost a few grand in the blink of an eye.
You can’t be on government insurance and use those programs though. But Medicaid on its own is great coverage.
That system seems so alien to me, I can’t even imagine. When my wife gave birth, she lost a ton of blood, like, far more than normal. She ended up needing both an iron and blood transfusion, and we needed to stay for a few extra days. She got a ton of meds and got seen by several doctors. Plus my baby had a couple small issues too which needed to get treated. Everything worked out okay, and everyone’s healthy now, thankfully. We didn’t pay a single cent. It was all covered. I can’t imagine making those decisions thinking about how much it would cost. I remember shortly after birth we were looking at how much birth costs in the States, it was insane. I can’t remember how much now but it was just for regular birth, I’m sure all the extras we needed would’ve cost more.
Oh, you see an actual doctor? I haven’t seen an actual doctor in the last like 3 years, always just a physicians assistant or other nurse.
Still get charged the dr copay though, funny how that works.
I wouldnt be surprised if the doctor is an AI construct and theyre just running my symptoms through whatever insurance company provided AI bullshit at this point.
Tbf, there is no “doctor copay.” The copay is a visit fee imposed by your insurance company that disincentivizes people from visiting the doctor. It’s also usually a paltry amount compared to the actual amount your insurance will pay the practice, and reimbursement fees for NPs and PAs are absolutely lower than for MDs
My bills literally list them as separate line items, theres the clinic copay, then the doctor copay.
Occasionally I even get two separate bills, one from the hospital, one from the Dr. Guessing their practice is the source of the one and the hospital system is the other?
Either way its fuckin annoying to be paying out of pocket 30+ bucks only to be told the equivalent of “gee i dunno take Tylenol I guess”.
I’ve worked in healthcare for decades and have literally never seen this. Are you sure you’re not thinking of coinsurance? Coinsurance and copays are two different things, a copay is a set fee dictated by your insurance that you pay up front, whereas coinsurance is usually the percentage you owe of anything billed to your insurance, which includes both facility and provider fees
At least it is free to go to the doctor
cries in American
