You have the right to find another doctor and to send letters of complaint to the doctor and to your insurance company.
I’m a doctor and I’ve on more than one occasion kept patients waiting 2 hours.
I
have patients who come in for a routine checkup and end up with
relapsing cancer found on my exam or a test. That changes a 15 minute
appointment into a 60+ minute appointment often involving a very freaked
out patient, conference calls to spouses and scrambling to get
additional scans or biopsies scheduled including calls to the imaging
center, calls to the interventional radiatiologist and/or surgeon, and
calls to the physician insurance reviewer which always involves waiting,
listening to music, pushing a bunch of buttons, making a mistake and
having to start over before getting a live person.
If that happens twice in a day, then I’m 2 hours behind.
The
alternative would be for me to say to a patient “I’m sorry. I think
that your cancer has returned. I’m not sure today where else it is or
what we’ll do about it. But your time is up. Please see my scheduler and
make another appointment for an hour of my time. It may take you 3 or 4
weeks to get that appointment but I’m sure you understand because there
are patients waiting in the waiting room.”
I’m not doing that because it’s not right.
All
of my patients are free to see another doctor who might handle his/her
practice that way, if being on time is more important to them than
having a doctor who goes “all hands on deck” when the shit hits the fan.
But
when I’m late, I do rely on my staff to make it very clear to my
patients that I’m running way late and give them the option to
reschedule. I’m not offended if they do reschedule. They have important
things to do as well.
And I’ll take my chances
that my patients understand that I’m taking care of some serious stuff
and that I’m not stepping out of the exam room to explain and apologize.
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