Doctor office visits

[Stewartb]

So the other folks who were ahead of her got further screwed. She must be proud. The problem wasn't remedied. The doctor's scheduling is still the primary problem.

 

[JOhnH]

I have walked out while wating too long, but that was because I had somewhere else I had to be.

But I try to look at it like this: If I had a 15 minute appointment, but the doctor found something serious, I wouldn't want him to kick me out because my 15 minutes were up. And I can speak from experience that that happens frequently. In fact, it can happen to more than one client sequentially. Doctors often skip (work through) lunch because of this and they still get yelled at for running late.

 

[RJM62]

When I make the appointment, I ask the receptionist to please suggest whatever day and time slot is most likely to result in my being seen on-time. It usually works. They get to know what the busy and slow days and slots are. Usually the first or the last slots of the day on Wednesday or Thursday work out pretty well. There are exceptions when people have emergencies or there's some local epidemic going on, but you really can't control things like that.

The problem with my doctor is that she's chatty. I went for a routine physical a week ago and she spent about 25 minutes after the exam telling me about her medical issues. Why, I have no idea. But she's a pretty good doc overall and has small index fingers, so you take the bad with the good.

Rich

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Depends if you are in private practice or part of a large group.
Prices are fixed by the govt and insurance companies. The only thing we can do is charge less then what they offer and they will reimburse less. One of the few industries that cannot work the basic supply vs demand pricing model like this country was founded on.
We were forced to add Electeonic medical records to get the same reimbursement. Typically a 6 fig outlay. If you didn’t go electronic and gated paper you get docked a percentage of reimbursement.
That’s what forced a lot of ppl to joint bigger hospital run groups. With the goal of cutting costs. Problem is reimbursement doesn’t change but now my bottom line has to justify a multi-tiers management crew that does nothing to bring dinero in- they only spend.
System is broken. Tell your kids to go into aviation!!
With all medicines problems I still love what I do. Love the pt interaction. When I goto work, I don’t feel like I’m “at work”.

Eliminate insurance, and you can fix supply/demand. (Same with easy student loans. Make 'em very difficult to get, watch tuition drop.)

 

[Zeldman]

That works for small private practices, but there is ZERO room to negotiate fees, or much of anything else, at my PCP's clinic, which recently got swallowed up by large regional hospital. They simply don't have the authority to make the adjustment.

That is too bad. Sounds more like corporate greed possibly.? The hospital I go to is a for profit hospital and they are always happy to see me come in and negotiate. A different hospital put the arterial stent in me and didn't even negotiate. They found out I was self paying and instantly gave me a 71% discount. I made sure they got paid first.

The surgical team is a different company out of Texas and they started with a 50% discount and then changed it to a 65% discount when I asked if they could do a little more.

The first emergency room at the hospital is sub contracted out, and on my first call they gave me a 50% discount, and when I went to pay them they added an additional 17% discount. Just amazing to me what these companies would do when I asked.

It has been an amazing experience. When it came to bill paying everyone was very helpful and worked with me on cost. I have completely paid off all medical bills.

 

[Rushie]

So the other folks who were ahead of her got further screwed. She must be proud. The problem wasn't remedied. The doctor's scheduling is still the primary problem.

That's sort of what I was thinking. The squeaky wheel gets the grease but at a cost to more agreeable people. She should have been put back to number 21 though, not punished for being 5 minutes late when the doctor was running later than that and it would have made no difference. That was stupid, illogical and unacceptable.

But my sister is like that when it comes to our Mom. Mom's doctor is horrible about being late, it's not unusual for people to sit for 2 to 3 hours after their appointment time, but my sister put her foot down and said mom will NOT sit that long. She's 91 and sis has become very protective and will squeaky wheel all day to benefit mom. But the flip side is the doctor is very thorough. When you do finally get in he is very engaged and takes all the time you need. That's one reason he runs late, but sometimes he has emergencies at the hospital. The staff is good about letting us know when that's the case.

Many doctors are refusing Medicare patients, and the lack of reasonable reimbursement is why, I don't blame them. It's hard to find a good doctor who will take you these days unless you go the conscierge model. I'd like to switch mom to that but changing doctors again will freak her out at this point.

 

[N3368K]

I walked out of a surgical consult after waiting in the waiting room for 30 minutes before being taken to an exam room and made to put on a gown and having to wait over an hour and a half for an 10:30am appointment. I got dressed and walked out to find the doctor and nurse sitting at a desk eating lunch. The nurse asked where I was going and I told her I was leaving. She then said, "You are next." I told her it appeared lunch was next and my appointment was two hours before. The doctor chimed in, "Mr Rice, I like to spend all the time necessary to properly treat my patients." I told him that was admirable and good, but he shouldn't schedule them so closely together if he can't manage his time better than being two hours late AND stopping to eat lunch while I continued to wait. His response was, "You may leave." No **** sherlock, I don't need your permission as I was already on my way out when you stopped me. And BTW, I will report this to my insurance company so if you attempt to charge them and don't give me back my pre-paid co-pay, it will be fraud. I then walked out and told the front desk the same about charging insurance and my co-pay.

The practice's head doctor (owner) nurse called me and scheduled a follow-up appointment with him. He saw me on time and was extremely apologetic that his young doctor had been so rude and slow. I told him it wasn't his fault, but he said it was since he is the head and that he was handling it. He even noted that the day of the "walk out appointment" was Nov 11, Veteran's Day and that my being a veteran made it doubly bad.

Young doctor ended up sending me a letter apologizing...I assume a requirement of the boss. Subsequent appointment was on time.

 

[Ken Ibold]

So the other folks who were ahead of her got further screwed. She must be proud. The problem wasn't remedied. The doctor's scheduling is still the primary problem.

She didn't force them to see her next. Only provided them with incentive in the form of a well-reasoned and assertive argument, totally devoid of threats or shouting. Personally, I think the staff made her next because they were embarrassed at all of the faults in their business model she was pointing out, and they didn't want the other patients to wise up.

But you are right, in that that particular doctor has a staff that dramatically overschedules. She had gone there once every two months or so for over 10 years, and it was always an entire day in the waiting room. Finally found another excellent doc in the same specialty and life is better.

 

[Sundancer]

Our Doc went concierge a couple years ago, and we went with him. $4200.00 per year for both of us. His staff is a part time nurse, and he obviously has no billing or insurance paperwork overhead. He prints us the generic reimbursement form, and it's on us to mail it. He sees fewer patients, for longer office visits, and has a real life.

 

[1RTK1]

I always call the receptionist and ask if my GP is running late, if they say yes, I ask if they can call me when they want me to come in.

 

[weilke]

Our Doc went concierge a couple years ago, and we went with him. $4200.00 per year for both of us. His staff is a part time nurse, and he obviously has no billing or insurance paperwork overhead. He prints us the generic reimbursement form, and it's on us to mail it. He sees fewer patients, for longer office visits, and has a real life.

You get what you pay for.

 

[weilke]

I always call the receptionist and ask if my GP is running late, if they say yes, I ask if they can call me when they want me to come in.

Some offices use an app for that. Works like the pager at a restaurant.

 

[JOhnH]

Some offices use an app for that. Works like the pager at a restaurant.

Great Clips hair stylists has an app that I like. It is continually updated with the expected wait time. If you check in, you are put on a list and taken in turn. I think it could be modified to account for those with advance appointments to check in and see what their wait time will be.

 

[Ghery]

Ophthalmologist scheduled me in for 2 HOURS before his normal start time, then showed up an hour late.
After I found out there was no emergency, just him being a total dick, I billed him for my time.
Took him to small claims court, won, and walked away with $2,400.00, or 3 hours at my normal bill out rate.
I was hoping he would balk at paying me. I really wanted to go into his office with a couple of deputies, (one a cousin, the other a lifelong friend) and loot his office.

$800/hr? And people complain about my lousy $250/hr rate. What do you do? I may need to change specialties (not likely with 42 years already in mine).

 

[Shepherd]

$800/hr? And people complain about my lousy $250/hr rate. What do you do? I may need to change specialties (not likely with 42 years already in mine).

When I was young and famous, I charged that to consult on some scientific projects.
When I didn't want to work on something I quoted $1,600.00 an hour. Some people were dumb enough to pay it.
Now that I'm old, and not famous, if someone comes to me with something really interesting, I do it for free.

 

[Ventucky Red]

Not very. Knee hurts when climbing into plane. Otherwise no problem. Now at one hour.

Are you seeing a Saw Bones (orthopedic surgeon) or your primary care guy? If a Saw Bones, I am a little empathic as they may have been on call and had to go fix something... or was in surgery earlier that day and it took a little longer than planned...

If primary care, and hour.... no effing way... I would have been all over the receptionists.

That said, I actually did walk out once... after I let the reception desk know of my displeasure in the lack of professionalism... I beleve my exact words were "the county hospital emergency room has better wait times.." it seems this was the norm with them, and after the fourth visit I went for another doctor...