Drs Appt wait times

[Cumberland]

How long do you wait when you go to the doctor? My waits for my PNC visits are on average an hour til I get to a room, then 20 ish minutes in the room for 10 minute appt. By the time the OB gets in there, I am so ready to get out of there, that I dont really ask questions. My longest wait was over 2 hours. Where I had DD, if my appt was at 10:05, I was in the back by 10:07. Sitting there waiting just really drives my type A self nuts. And I will have to start going weekly soon.

Drives me crazy and makes me crabby. I try to schedule for the first appt or the 1:00 appt. Bring reading?

[Gwendolyn]

Nellie, I do the same. When I complain to DH, he tries to explain the "art of medicine." Not helpful

[DCJenn]

Luckily, the military lives and dies by time- so I rarely wait.

even for peds appointments.

J.

[Vishenka69]

I only go to ob and constantly have to wait because I'm the only non-pregnant woman in the room. I try not to get too pissed off though because I know that whatever issues brought them in are far more important than my annual and refill. But I usually spend an extra 1-2 hours waiting to see the doc. This is the case even when I get the first appt of the day at 8:30-9am and arrive early.

That really sucks that you have to wait that long...especially when it's just for a 10 minute appt. My ob's office would track when patients arrived on the computer, so as soon as I arrived a note would pop up on my ob's laptop. If he noticed that I had been waiting for more than a few minutes, he would send one of the nurses out to get me. Before they got this system in place, I would sometimes wait 20-30 minutes before I made it into a room and my ob had no idea that I had been waiting so long.

Does your ob's office have a way of tracking when patients arrive? If not, your doctor might not know that you are waiting so long in the lobby before getting in a room. Maybe you could bring it up with your ob at your next appt?

[Sheherezade]

I have to second that comment. I know that now that DH actually sees patients in the office on his own, he's discovered that the staff sometimes doesn't put someone in a room for 30 minutes even when he's there waiting at the beginning of the day. He had to tell them that 8 AM meant 8 AM, not 8:30. He always end up behind a few minutes and tries to catch up by skipping lunch. I'd make sure the doc knows the wait time is significant.

Luckily, the military lives and dies by time- so I rarely wait.

even for peds appointments.

You would if you were here.....

[fluffhead]

Waiting in a Dr office drives me absolutely bonkers, especially waiting in the exam room. I'm ditching our pediatrician mega-practice for many reasons, but one of them is this reason. Going to a much smaller practice.

[Rapunzel]

We have to go to the Air Force base for medical care and they are CRAZY about time. Crazy. Well, they're crazy about YOU being on time. We generally wait as long as a half hour after the scheduled appt. time before being seen (the kids OR myself).

In order to get to the base we have to drive on a state highway and an interstate - both of which can be absolutely killer depending on factors like wrecks and roadwork. On a good day it takes me half an hour to get from my house to the base gate. So, I generally leave the house 45 minutes before a doctor's appt. on base.

Last winter my son had an appt. for his increasingly worse asthma attacks. We left 45 minutes ahead of time and encountered a wreck on the interstate. This was before I had a cellphone so I couldn't call the clinic to work something out. So, we sat in traffic for a looooong time and ended up being 15 minutes late.

When we got to the clinic and I explained the situation I was told that was too bad and he would not be seen that day - by anyone (physician or nurse practitiner). Apparently, if you are ten minutes late you've ruined your chance to be seen for the day and that's that! And, they don't let you schedule an appt. for urgent care in advance. You have to call the morning that you desire the appt. and hope you or your child can be seen. So, I couldn't just schedule an appt. for the next day while at the clinic (you also have to go through a third party - the insurance company - to schedule most appts. btw).

It was awful and I left very, very angry AFTER chewing out the nurse that was in charge of the clinic. That's right, they have nurses in charge - not physicians.

Last spring I filled out the paperwork to request having the children seen by a pediatrician (non-military) that would be closer to home. My request was approved (AFTER the people in the Tricare office tried to convince me not to even bother filling it out because it would "never" be approved ). So, a couple of weeks later I received the list of approved physicians nearby. Exactly ONE person on the list was a pediatrician. ONE. The rest were internal medicine physicians - not family practice - internal medicine. The weird thing is that I had actually met this pediatrician before and spoken with her a bit. From that meeting I had decided I would never send my kids to her (she was in her late 60's and kind of, well, batty and not all there). :|

So, I ended up taking the kids back to the base for urgent care and well-baby check-ups. Now, I just leave an hour before an appt.! At least they have one competent pediatrician on-staff (yup, just one for a population I've been told is in excess of 1200 peds patients) and they might get in to see her.

Anyone who wants the government to be in charge of their medical care is insane. I live that nightmare.

It was awful and I left very, very angry AFTER chewing out the nurse that was in charge of the clinic. That's right, they have nurses in charge - not physicians.

Get used to this. The offices are run by the higher ranking nurse in the group, the enlisted folks are run by the highest ranking NCO of the bunch- usually a VERY good person - the doc's will have their own "talking head" that basically has nothing to do with the interaction of patients/families and doc's...just making sure that the docs are getting their "offical AF" duties, as well as their quota of patients seen.

...and they are trying to stick to the plan where parents can't just show up at 9:45 for the 9a appt they set up...many folks don't get it. Sure there are always exceptions, but 9 out of 10 are lazy, period. Oh the stories I could tell you....all of which are completely HIPPA compliant!!

[DCJenn]

Same here- they WILL not see late patients. and to be honest, I really don't blame them. You have to be at the appointment 15 minutes prior WITH your chart. There is no parking at Walter Reed so I usually factor in leaving the house an hour and a half before any appointment.

But, once you're there, they check you in immediately- and I've never waited more than 5 minutes for gyn, radiology or nuclear medicine. I have waited more for labs because they'll prioritize so that the people in uniform are seen first. Same with the pharmacy. (which takes forever so we find it's just easier to have Rick go in uniform topick up prescriptions) Pediatrics is a dream and the techs are amazing.

and no, the docs don't 'run' the clinic, the nurses do. Which is fine. and none of them do the schedules anyway- that's all done through the tricare phone line anyway.

It works pretty well here, as long as you're not ever late.

Jenn

[Rapunzel]

The military medical system so far in my experience offers absolutely no flexibility and they put their beauracratic rules ahead of patient care. The fact that you cannot even contact the military clinic itself is crazy. A few months ago I had a question that I needed to ask a nurse or other medical person with access to one of my children's charts. It turns out the base clinic's phone number is not listed and Tricare insisted I was not allowed to leave a message for my child's primary care manager (the pediatrician) OR a nurse in the peds clinic. I had to be very tenacious just to get the young, non-medical phone-answering kid at Tricare to call the base clinic and transfer me over. It took him about 20 minutes of convincing. No joke. You should not have to convince some non-medical person with your insurance company that you need to leave a message for a nurse to answer a medically-related question. Totally obnoxious.

I spent five years prior to this residency using civilian pediatricians and each of the peds practices we had during those years was run far, far better than the military system. In the civilian pediatric practices you can actually speak to a nurse if you have a pressing medical question, you can schedule appt's through the practice (rather than through your insurance company), there is a degree of compassion among the staff (ie if you are 15 minutes late one time in three years due to events beyond your control it is forgiven), and, generally, it's a kid-friendly, non-hostile environment (contrary to the various hostile personalities I've encountered in the military pharmacy, check-in desk, and among the medical staff). Oh, and, in a normal (ie civilian) pediatric clinic the people that are in charge are hired because of their abilities - not because they've ended up being the longest-running member of the staff (which is why you find nurses in charge of military medical clinics - they've been in the longest as the doctors get out as fast as they can - and who can blame them?). And, if the staff of a normal pediatric clinic is incompetant or fails to adequately serve the patient population they are - fired. That's not going to happen in a military clinic. Additionally, in the civilian world you have choice. If a pediatrician is wildly incongruent with your needs or other factors arise you can take your business elsewhere. When I attempted to do that with the military clinic (because of distance primarily after that obnoxious incident I related) I got exactly ONE alternative who was out of the question.

Having been in both worlds now - it is quite clear that the civilian one is MUCH better.

Recently my son needed to be referred out to a pediatric specialist and it has been an absolute nightmare getting Tricare to do what they are supposed to do. Both my husband and myself have been given the run-around on what should be a simple referral matter. After a MONTH we still haven't been able to schedule his appt. A month. All three of my older children have had to see a variety of peds specialists in the civilian world and we never encountered the absolute mess that we are witnessing at the moment.

[PrincessFiona]

Our wait times vary...but I have ended the frustration for myself by basically....only waiting a certain amount of time. I know it probably sounds awful to all of you, but if I have had to wait in the waiting room for about 40 minutes I tend to go up to the desk and mention the wait and ask what the timeframe is. I'm very polite and apologetic...really...and if they tell me that the doc is just behind, I reschedule. I understand that things happen that are outside of the control of the docs...and that they are scheduled too little time for visits...but my time is valuable too.

After Aidan was born, I was discharged post-c-section and had an appt. the next day with the pedi. I was really exhausted and we waited an hour to go back into the office and then an hour or so in the office. I was tired, hungry and sore and I just packed him up and decided to go. I walked out and found the nurse who pretty much told me if I could just wait '15 more minutes' then the doc would be in...that she had an emergency and was behind. I explained that I was exhausted and that I'd reschedule...no big deal.

I did later tell my pediatrician that I wasn't angry with her about it (she was upset that I had left) but that in the case of such an extreme wait patients should be notified. We all have schedules to keep.

I have a great relationship with my pediatrician and it's never been a problem...they do know that I won't wait forever though. Also, I'm respectful of our pediatrician's time...I try and honor the '15 minutes' thing so that other people aren't waiting forever because of me.


oh...
I don't want govt. in charge of our healthcare aka military medicine...I want some sort of govt. sponsored health insurance for the uninsured...big difference.

kris

[Rapunzel]

Tricare IS government-sponsored health insurance. They are a HUGE part of my problem with this particular healthcare system.