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On online review sites, one of the measures doctors are judged by is how long patients are kept waiting in the waiting room before they are seen. But is that a fair measure?
One of my patients is habitually late, always 15-20 minutes late for her 15-minute follow-up visit. And she’s not a straightforward patient. If I am lucky, the person scheduled to come after her arrives early, so I see him or her first and my schedule is thrown off by only a few minutes. But more often I end up running late, and the rest of the patients have to wait longer than they normally would.
The last time I saw her, I politely asked her why she was late again, and after her initial protestations that she was actually on time, she said to me: "I don’t yell at you when you make me wait."
I do my best not to keep patients waiting. Of course, in a busy rheumatology practice, that is not always realistic. I need to take a history, perform a physical exam, monitor labs and x-rays and bone densities, as well as counsel on smoking cessation. Not to mention the elderly man who needs time for a good cry because he still feels guilty about having put his wife in a nursing home, or the lovely gentleman with a bad stutter who takes a very long time to finish his sentences.
Although I am typically quite prompt, sometimes I am a little late. I don’t make a habit of it, and if I am late it is with good reason. Trust me, I was not twiddling my thumbs.
But when patients are habitually late, it implies a certain expectation that they’ll be seen anyway even if they’re late. It signifies complacency toward the doctor and a lack of consideration for the other people who are inconvenienced – all the subsequent patients who are then kept waiting.
The difference between a doctor being late and a patient being late is that the doctor is providing a service, not only to that patient but to all the other patients on their schedule. If I keep you waiting, you know it’s because I was giving the patients before you the same kind of attention and level of care that you can and should expect to get. This is why patients don’t usually yell at their doctors for being late, nor do doctors deserve to be yelled at when they are.
Asking patients if they were kept waiting is not a useful question. How much or how little a doctor keeps a patient waiting is not an indication of the quality of care that the doctor is capable of giving.
Dr. Chan practices rheumatology in Pawtucket, R.I. E-mail her at [email protected].
On online review sites, one of the measures doctors are judged by is how long patients are kept waiting in the waiting room before they are seen. But is that a fair measure?
One of my patients is habitually late, always 15-20 minutes late for her 15-minute follow-up visit. And she’s not a straightforward patient. If I am lucky, the person scheduled to come after her arrives early, so I see him or her first and my schedule is thrown off by only a few minutes. But more often I end up running late, and the rest of the patients have to wait longer than they normally would.
The last time I saw her, I politely asked her why she was late again, and after her initial protestations that she was actually on time, she said to me: "I don’t yell at you when you make me wait."
I do my best not to keep patients waiting. Of course, in a busy rheumatology practice, that is not always realistic. I need to take a history, perform a physical exam, monitor labs and x-rays and bone densities, as well as counsel on smoking cessation. Not to mention the elderly man who needs time for a good cry because he still feels guilty about having put his wife in a nursing home, or the lovely gentleman with a bad stutter who takes a very long time to finish his sentences.
Although I am typically quite prompt, sometimes I am a little late. I don’t make a habit of it, and if I am late it is with good reason. Trust me, I was not twiddling my thumbs.
But when patients are habitually late, it implies a certain expectation that they’ll be seen anyway even if they’re late. It signifies complacency toward the doctor and a lack of consideration for the other people who are inconvenienced – all the subsequent patients who are then kept waiting.
The difference between a doctor being late and a patient being late is that the doctor is providing a service, not only to that patient but to all the other patients on their schedule. If I keep you waiting, you know it’s because I was giving the patients before you the same kind of attention and level of care that you can and should expect to get. This is why patients don’t usually yell at their doctors for being late, nor do doctors deserve to be yelled at when they are.
Asking patients if they were kept waiting is not a useful question. How much or how little a doctor keeps a patient waiting is not an indication of the quality of care that the doctor is capable of giving.
Dr. Chan practices rheumatology in Pawtucket, R.I. E-mail her at [email protected].
On online review sites, one of the measures doctors are judged by is how long patients are kept waiting in the waiting room before they are seen. But is that a fair measure?
One of my patients is habitually late, always 15-20 minutes late for her 15-minute follow-up visit. And she’s not a straightforward patient. If I am lucky, the person scheduled to come after her arrives early, so I see him or her first and my schedule is thrown off by only a few minutes. But more often I end up running late, and the rest of the patients have to wait longer than they normally would.
The last time I saw her, I politely asked her why she was late again, and after her initial protestations that she was actually on time, she said to me: "I don’t yell at you when you make me wait."
I do my best not to keep patients waiting. Of course, in a busy rheumatology practice, that is not always realistic. I need to take a history, perform a physical exam, monitor labs and x-rays and bone densities, as well as counsel on smoking cessation. Not to mention the elderly man who needs time for a good cry because he still feels guilty about having put his wife in a nursing home, or the lovely gentleman with a bad stutter who takes a very long time to finish his sentences.
Although I am typically quite prompt, sometimes I am a little late. I don’t make a habit of it, and if I am late it is with good reason. Trust me, I was not twiddling my thumbs.
But when patients are habitually late, it implies a certain expectation that they’ll be seen anyway even if they’re late. It signifies complacency toward the doctor and a lack of consideration for the other people who are inconvenienced – all the subsequent patients who are then kept waiting.
The difference between a doctor being late and a patient being late is that the doctor is providing a service, not only to that patient but to all the other patients on their schedule. If I keep you waiting, you know it’s because I was giving the patients before you the same kind of attention and level of care that you can and should expect to get. This is why patients don’t usually yell at their doctors for being late, nor do doctors deserve to be yelled at when they are.
Asking patients if they were kept waiting is not a useful question. How much or how little a doctor keeps a patient waiting is not an indication of the quality of care that the doctor is capable of giving.
Dr. Chan practices rheumatology in Pawtucket, R.I. E-mail her at [email protected].
