How long a wait is acceptable at a doctor's office?

[Yonak Hawkins]

I bet no one took unpaid time off work to sit at the doctor.

I do. Being a one-man shop, I lose money any time I'm not working there.

[Kevin Beitz]

I once waited an hour and a half at an ER with blood running out of my eye.
I got up and left. Now the only way I'll go to the doc is if I'm out cold and someone takes me.

[Matt Day]

You’re pissed about waiting 1.5hrs at the ER?! I’m going to guess it’s because of triage. Likely someone was in serious trouble - shot, heart attack, stroke, etc. That takes priority over a bloody eye.

If you go to a big hospital (not a private practice), the doctors have little to no control of their schedule. It’s about making money, for the hospital not the doctors.

I hope you guys aren’t the same patients who refuse to see a woman doctor, or Muslim doctor, or a gay doctor.

[Edwin Santos]

I once waited an hour and a half at an ER with blood running out of my eye.
I got up and left. Now the only way I'll go to the doc is if I'm out cold and someone takes me.

An ER is a very different situation than a scheduled appointment. I think you need to be reasonable and expect that an ER, urgent care, or walk-in clinic is going to be the luck of the draw in terms of wait time. This is not only because of their staffing, but also because every situation coming their way is unplanned and urgent. The patient before you might have come in for a dog bite, or a life threatening stroke so the range of issues that present can be really wide.

The original post had to do with a scheduled office appointment, a 1hr+ wait, and no communication from staff as to why or how much longer. In other words, a very different situation.

[Jim Koepke]

My wait in the dentist office this morning was 15 minutes. Kind of surprising since my arrival was 20 minutes early.

In other words they put me in the chair 5 minutes before my appointment.

In my opinion, if your doctor or dentist is constantly having patients wait more than a few minutes, it might be time to start shopping for a new care provider.

jtk

[Doug Garson]

In my experience dentists and doctors operate in different modes. Typically if I go to the dentist it's for a cleaning and checkup. A 1 hour appointment is a 1 hour appointment. I rarely wait at all at the dentist but one time I was 15 min late for a 1 hour appointment they simply gave me a 45 min treatment so as to not delay the next patient. If the checkup shows treatment is required they book an appointment and the length of the appointment is based on the procedure required. A doctor doesn't have that option, they don't know in advance what treatment if any will be required. I've never had a doctor say your appointments up, book another appointment to complete the exam or treatment.

[Brian Elfert]

I went to my family doctor once for a toenail issue. He ended up doing a minor surgical procedure to remove my entire nail so it would grow back properly. The amount of time he spent with me was certainly longer than my allotted time on the schedule.

Now, granted, I was taken to a procedure room by a nurse who injected my toe with a numbing agent. I am certain the doctor saw a patient or two while I was getting taken care of by the nurse before the doctor came to the procedure room to remove my toenail. (I didn't even know that a family doctor even did stuff like this.)

[Len Mullin]

Usually, if you go to the ER around here, you can normally expect a wait a minimum of about eight hours or more. Especially, if it's for a non emergency visit. It all depends on if it is an emergency or not, if not, they're trying to get people to make an appointment with their family doctor. So the one's that aren't an emergency, get to wait the longest. I have a great doctor, he calls for me to go in to see him, before he takes vacations or any amount of time off. He does this because of my meds, he is the only doctor in the area that can prescribe the meds I need. So before he takes any amount of time off, I get a call to go in. Plus, if you have an appointment time, that's the time you get to see him. And if you're kept waiting for any reason, he apologizes over and over again. He is a great doctor, and there's a lot of people who would love to have him as their doctor. But he refuses to take on any new clients, because he says that he already has enough to keep his schedule full. This is what more doctors should be like, but they're forced to take on so many clients that they can't keep running appointments on time. Plus, you have to wait for weeks to get in to see them, because they're so busy.

Len

[Tony Zona]

You said "around here." Where’s here?