Do you have an appointment? Yes, but you'll still be waiting.

aussieboy said :

Wow I can’t believe how vicious these responses are.

quote]

hahaha I can!

The 2 big hold ups at gp surgeries are:

When someone needs emergency service, if someone shows up with a mild complaint but is then found to have something serious. In this case they call an ambulance and wait with the patient until it arrives.

When somebody (usually and older person with a pension car) comes in for treatment but really only wants some one to talk to.

If you wanted them to call every time they were running late it is just another task for the receptionist to do, this will slow them down and maybe the whole service.

Also it is interesting to know that of the 30 odd students i know studying medicine at the ANU only 1 of them wants to become a GP. I don’t know why this is, but the question is always phrased what do you want to specialise in? you don’t JUST want to be a gp do you? Being a GP seems to be at the bottom of the pile in medicine so I guess we don’t get enough people training to become gps and therefore don’t have enough gps. I know they get paid enough, but do they get enough respect?

I’ve heard that the Phillip Medical Centre doesn’t have appointments, it runs on a a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Also, you have to pay up-front, before you get seen, and if you don’t get to see a doctor before they close, you get no refund on your money. That’s kinda rude.

On the subject of doctors being late, I recently had an appointment at the Gungahlin Medical Centre for 9.30am, and didn’t get seen til 11.15am. On the other hand, more recently at that same doctor, I had a 3pm appointment and had to wait all of 3 minutes to get seen.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

The first part of that sentence was accurate. I’m sure if you try harder you’ll be able to finish a whole one. But just to make you happy (I’m all for extending kindness to those…well, let’s just say ‘less capable’ than the rest of us):

Oh, I have no doubt that you think very highly of your own abilities.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

And I’m not a medical doctor. I’m just a grown-up with zero tolerance for whiny little man-b*tches.

Yes, as stated before, there’s no danger of anybody mistaking you for a grown-up.

OpenYourMind said :

GeorgesGenitals said:
“If a practice is really irritating you this much, go somewhere else.”

That’s the whole point. GPs won’t take new patients otherwise we would change. People new to Canberra can’t find a Dr at all. As I’ve said before, waiting 2hrs is a big problem if you (or more likely your child) gets sick often. It’s not being whiney, it’s complaining about a genuine problem that may well be affecting peoples quality of life and employment.

Complaining about people going to the Doctor with a sniff or cough annoy me as well. Even the mightiest among us get colds and coughs. We don’t want to go to work and spread our germs, our only option is to see a Dr to get a medical certificate. I don’t need a GP to tell me that I have a cold and that it is probably viral and there’s nothing they can do about it, but that’s how the stupid system works.

Equally unsympathetic are the comments relating to fitness and weight issues. People get sick, stop getting high and mighty about why they get sick and putting the blame back on them because they have to see a GP. I’m from the triathlon community and take fitness seriously, but I’ve still seen fellow athletes get cancer/heart problems and exercise related injuries.

The big issue we’ve got here is the shortage of GP services. How do we fix this problem?

I don’t disagree that this is a problem, yet where I live GPs take new patients no problem at, you just ring up and make an appointment.

Seeing a GP in Canberra is becoming like seeing a specialist in other big cities. Hard to find one, long time to get an appointment, wait 2 hours on the day, and get charged 75.00.

We are worse off than most of Australia with regard to access to GPs, and I don’t’ see why we should be the only people in Australia to not see a GP unless we are practically dead, and then be happy to wait hours on the day.

As someone said above, in Sydney you can find a bulk billing dr to see you on the same day. In Adelaide all kids under 12 are always bulk billed. We are seriously ripped off in Canberra.

I don’t know what the answer is, but for a start we should be declared a regional area of need by the Fed Govt, and they should pay a higher levy on medicare to GPs for seeing Canberra patients. This would encourage new GPs to set up here, and might encourage current GPs to take on a few less appointments per day.

GeorgesGenitals said:
“If a practice is really irritating you this much, go somewhere else.”

That’s the whole point. GPs won’t take new patients otherwise we would change. People new to Canberra can’t find a Dr at all. As I’ve said before, waiting 2hrs is a big problem if you (or more likely your child) gets sick often. It’s not being whiney, it’s complaining about a genuine problem that may well be affecting peoples quality of life and employment.

Complaining about people going to the Doctor with a sniff or cough annoy me as well. Even the mightiest among us get colds and coughs. We don’t want to go to work and spread our germs, our only option is to see a Dr to get a medical certificate. I don’t need a GP to tell me that I have a cold and that it is probably viral and there’s nothing they can do about it, but that’s how the stupid system works.

Equally unsympathetic are the comments relating to fitness and weight issues. People get sick, stop getting high and mighty about why they get sick and putting the blame back on them because they have to see a GP. I’m from the triathlon community and take fitness seriously, but I’ve still seen fellow athletes get cancer/heart problems and exercise related injuries.

The big issue we’ve got here is the shortage of GP services. How do we fix this problem?

Also, the general public needs to take some responsibility. Do we actually need more GPs? Or do we just need people to grow up and stop going to the doctor for every little sniff and cough? Perhaps people could take responsibility for ensuring their own health, instead of gobbling down processed, sugar laden rubbish whilst sitting on the couch instead of exercising, then expecting medical intervention when they develop type 2 diabetes/polycystic ovaries/heart disease.

Oh Oh Oh Oh I know this one *puts hand up* People need to grow up and stop attending the doctor for every little sniff and cough !

And yes people also need to get off the couch and exercise and eat better, lose a little bit of weight. Australia has the highest obesity rate IN THE WORLD !!!!!! Our tax payers money spends more on treating weight related medical issues than anything else in the medical system.

The weather is warming up – put down the cheeseburger and go take your dog for a daily walk for at least 20-30mins.

(damnit stupid irony, now I want a cheeseburger)

Oh, I don’t think anybody would mistake you for a grown-up.

The first part of that sentence was accurate. I’m sure if you try harder you’ll be able to finish a whole one. But just to make you happy (I’m all for extending kindness to those…well, let’s just say ‘less capable’ than the rest of us):

And I’m not a medical doctor. I’m just a grown-up with zero tolerance for whiny little man-b*tches.

Genie said :

1. I think your a moron

That’s worth looking at again solely for its delightful irony.

Sheesh – I have a local practice I attend and they are rarely more than 15 mins late, and have always taken care of the family and I really well. If a practice is really irritating you this much, go somewhere else.

Leinna said – @ The Frots, that’s pretty ordinary. In any profession there are going to be money hungry bastards I suppose Fortunately, not the majority.
–> Are you sure it was the doctor who sent the receptionist out? I would have hoped he’d be more interested in seeing his next patient if you were on the way to the hospital.

Well Leinna, sadly, yes it was the doctor who wanted the money. In fact, I was charged $150 for what was a 10″ visit – apparently using the ECG and associated equipment put me into the higher bracket worth fighting for.

The receptionist, as I said, was very embarassed and kept apologising. But this particular doctor is, shall I say, known to be fairly greedy and whips through patients in around 3 to 4 minutes (and I am serious!!!). It’s all money for this guy.

Again, I emphasis,, there really are some great doctors and thankfully now I have one. But, going back all the way to the original thread that kicked this off, I can really understand why the anger is around.

I’ve been attending the Kingston Family Medical Practice for the past 12 years. Where possible, I always book the very first appointment of the day. I have always waited at least 20 minutes (and usually more like 30 minutes), even though no one was before me, while my doc gets his coffee, fluffs around and does lawd knows what else. So he’s 30 minutes behind before he even sees his first patient.

On occasions where I haven’t been able to get the first appointment, I’ve experienced a wait of up to two hours. On one occasion, after waiting an hour, I informed reception I was ducking out to put more money in the parking meter and returned to the advice that I’d missed my appointment and would be “slotted in where possible”. I was gone a whole 5 (5!) minutes. I waited another 45 minutes.

And yes – Kingston will charge you for a missed appointment. My hubby made an appointment, promptly forgot about it and got a bill the following week. Admittedly the charge was cancelled when he called them, but still…

So why go back, I hear you ask. Well. He’s a good doctor and he knows his stuff. So I suck up my irritation at being kept waiting even with the first appt of the day, and at other times go resigned to the fact that I must wait at least an hour, if not longer.

I don’t expect to be bulk billed. My father was a GP. I know how hard they work. I don’t mind paying $75, or whatever the charge is, for a consultation. What I do mind is that when patients are consistently kept waiting, then clearly there is a scheduling problem that needs to be addressed. My experience over 12 years is that if I don’t get the first appointment of the day, I’m cooling my heels for an average of an hour. That’s not a random, one-off event. That’s the way it is. And clearly from what’s been posted by others, the problem is common across Canberra. So why not schedule three appointments per hour instead of four? At least give it a shot!

Also, the general public needs to take some responsibility. Do we actually need more GPs? Or do we just need people to grow up and stop going to the doctor for every little sniff and cough? Perhaps people could take responsibility for ensuring their own health, instead of gobbling down processed, sugar laden rubbish whilst sitting on the couch instead of exercising, then expecting medical intervention when they develop type 2 diabetes/polycystic ovaries/heart disease.

Also, what child these days doesn’t have some sort of issue on the autism spectrum (otherwise known in my father’s day as bored child with absent parent syndrome…)? What teenager isn’t depressed? Which public servant isn’t trying to slope off work, thereby requiring a medical certificate and clogging up the GP’s waiting room? Why do people continually seek antibiotics for non-bacterial ailments? I’d warrant half the people who clamour to see a GP on any given day don’t need to be there.

Maybe I’m just too naive as I haven’t personally worked outside of the public system.
But the Medicare guidelines are for a service (eg. Initial consultation, short consultation etc). In dont see how you could charge someone for a service you didn’t provide… Don’t you have to sign a medicare form? How can the charge you of you haven’t signed anything? Why would The Frots’ receptionist have been chasing after a patient, getting on to an ambulance, if they could just charge them anyway?

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

What part of ‘unpredictable uncertainty’ don’t you understand?
…
How about you get a clue …
…
I think it might have something to do with d*ckhead whack jobs trying to argue about whether or not they should pay.
….
Genius. Truly, you are the greatest thinker of our time.
…
I guess a lack of perspective isn’t your biggest problem after all.
…
And I’m not a medical doctor. I’m just a grown-up.

Oh, I don’t think anybody would mistake you for a grown-up.

Here I was thinking you were the troll. Sorry if my last post was a touch scrambled, I was probably too stunned to believe someone thought doctors charged patients who didn’t turn up to their appointments.

My perspective is a little different as I work in the hospital.

1) I am also in Canberra and I was referring to the lack of specialists meaning that some people need to travel to Sydney for medical care. If GPs head the same way then you might need to travel to Sydney to see a GP. Sorry if it wasn’t clear.

2) The neurologist example was just one of many related to the shortage of doctors in Canberra. This will hopefully improve in the next 5 – 10 years with the ANU graduates coming in.

3) I’m glad you weren’t going to the hospital, if the GP could sort things out in 5 minutes you probably would have been waiting a long time. Although they have opened up a drop-in centre now that can issue medical certificates (I think…)

4 + 5) Again, I’m too focussed on hospital medicine. How about a patient who comes in for an asthma check, who then confides to you that they’re depressed and contemplating suicide. Or they have just developed rectal bleeding. They have developed erectile dysfunction, now there’s a short chat you can have with someone. Patients bring extra things up when they are seeing their doctor.

6) I can’t speak for the doctor in question, maybe he was just having a bad day and was grumpy? I think he should have apologised.

7) Regarding sandwiches … I wouldn’t pay you anything as I would have left after 15 minutes of waiting for a sandwich. There are lots of other sandwich shops out there. I could even make my own sandwich.

A final point – I am only posting because I think you are completely wrong about why doctors have waiting times. There are waiting times because people are sick and there aren’t enough doctors to see them. To suggest that there is some money-hungry, uncaring practice behind it is an affront to the decent and hard working GPs who are doing the best they can to help their patients. Doing their best means that delays occur.

@ The Frots, that’s pretty ordinary. In any profession there are going to be money hungry bastards I suppose 🙁 Fortunately, not the majority.
–> Are you sure it was the doctor who sent the receptionist out? I would have hoped he’d be more interested in seeing his next patient if you were on the way to the hospital.

Leinna said :

Wow, so many things to answer here.

Firstly, doctors charging you money if you don’t turn up to your appointment. How could you even think of this? It is:
a) not legal
b) not professional
c) not ethical
and would not be done, even by the most money-grabbing heartless doctor in Canberra. Well I hope not.
Additionalx2: I still can’t believe you think doctors would charge you money for not turning up to an appointment.

1. I think your a moron
2. Alot of doctors will charge if you don’t show up for an appointment. My physio, acupuncturist, chiro and my doctor – all charge for missed appointments. Gyms and personal trainers will charge if you do a no show. Most people who work in these professions book in their “time” not their service. If you book in an appointment from 3-330 and dont show up – that person cant just go onto the next person. They have to wait for their 330pm to arrive.

Reply

I really have to add something in here. There was talk about some doctors (and by no means all) being money hungary.

I had an experience not that long ago where, while I was being wheeled out of a northside practice on a guerney to a waiting ambulance, the receptionist was tasked (by the doctor in charge of the practice) to run alongside me while I signed the receipt for my consultation!!!

This was while I was in severe pain, a regular user of the practice in question, and ON A STRETCHER goiung to hospital. Even the receptionist herself apologised, and the ambulance crew were, well, angry on my behalf (I was rather sick at the time).

Now, this isn’t for all ACT doctors – there really are some great ones – and some nice ones. But, there really are some pricks as well……………and this one I’ll never forget!!!

Firstly, expand the standard consultation out to 20 minutes.

Now your doctor has 24 slots in a day to see people, so their waiting list is longer and their revenue is reduced while their fixed costs remain constant. Forget waiting 75 minutes today, because you can’t get in til next Tuesday. And people are still early or late, and take shorter or longer than 20 minutes to see, and now we’re back where we started. What part of ‘unpredictable uncertainty’ don’t you understand?

how about you employ a messaging system that tells your patients that you’re running behind

How about you get a clue and realise that doctors are always running behind? I think it might have something to do with d*ckhead whack jobs trying to argue about whether or not they should pay.

But hey, let’s humour you. How late does the doctor have to be to text people? How far into the queue should it text? Should it let you know that people have cancelled or the doctor has caught up and now you’re not late? If you get a text that says ‘Doctor Smith is currently 22 minutes behind schedule, with 4 people in the queue against a planned 3’, what exactly are you going to do with that information? Cancel or reschedule – and start the whole process all over again for everybody in the waiting list? Remember, other people are receiving similar texts, and can also act, completely without your knowledge. Surprise, surprise – texting just drags you into the same unpredictable uncertainty as the doctor, except that it gives you more options to f*ck around with the schedule and make things worse.

And your idea to discriminate against the elderly? Genius. Truly, you are the greatest thinker of our time. I love how your solution will scale with population ageing. Soon doctors may have up to 8 appointments available every day! I guess a lack of perspective isn’t your biggest problem after all.

Shall we recap? Install an alert system that will confuse people and make the schedule even more random. Reduce revenue for no benefit to anybody. Tell old people to go f*ck themselves. Is that about it for your ‘solution’?

And I’m not a medical doctor. I’m just a grown-up.

Leinna, you’re clearly a troll so I probably shouldn’t bother but;

1 – I’m not in Sydeny, I’m in canberra
2 – I don’t need to see a specialist (a neurologist) I needed to see a GP
3 – I wasn’t going to the public hospital system – see point 3 – also see a previous comment of mine where I said I would be happy to wait hours to get into the hospital because it’s free and it’s a triage system
4 – I consider an asthma attack or a severed head an emergency, if someone suffering those ailments turned up to their GP instead of calling 000, they need to have their head read as well.
5 – If a cancer patient came and saw me as a doctor, I’d encourage them to use their Medicare Safety Net privileges and book a longer appointment
6 – I didn’t get an apology – it’s nice to know I would get one from you though
7 – I hope you’re my customer experiment, please pay full price for one of my sandwiches after I make you wait 75 minutes.

All I did was turn up on time for an appointment, I don’t know why trolls like yourself have to defend behaviour that if it were to happen to you would be totally unacceptable.

Wow, so many things to answer here.

Firstly, doctors charging you money if you don’t turn up to your appointment. How could you even think of this? It is:
a) not legal
b) not professional
c) not ethical
and would not be done, even by the most money-grabbing heartless doctor in Canberra. Well I hope not.
If a patient doesn’t turn up in my practice (I’m not a GP but work as a speciality registrar) I am:
1) Worried that something particularly bad might have happened to the patient which is why they haven’t come in
2) Relieved that I will be able to catch up on my other patients if I happen to be running late
Our nursing staff contact patients to find out where they are, NOT because we want to steal their money for some nefarious purpose, but because we are genuinely concerned about that patient’s welfare.

If I’m running late, the first thing I do when I see a new patient is apologise. There are a number of reason I can run late, I’m sure a GP would have some different reasons, but they include:
1) A patient didn’t turn up on time, thereby delaying the rest of the patients (this is uncommon)
2) An emergency with another patient who is receiving treatment means that we can’t start the clinic on time. This is *common*.
3) A patient who takes longer than expected due to something like their cancer relapsing or mental health issues. No, I don’t just say “Sorry, your 15 minutes are up, see ya!”
4) Overbooked clinics. This isn’t so much of a problem in my field, but instead of your 75 minute wait how would you like to have to travel to Sydney to see a doctor. The waiting time to see a neurologist in the public system in Canberra is close to one *year*. And that’s with overbooked clinics. When a practice manager has to ‘squeeze you in’ for an urgent appointment (as with a previous poster’s ill child), that’s a double booking.

20 minute appointments? Isn’t that a large increase in the fee you have to pay? And instead of seeing 30 patients a day, you see 20 patients a day and 10 patients develop complications of whatever illness they are suffering from.

Patients with complicated medical problems, if known about, are booked for longer appointment times in most cases.

At the end of the day, if you’re someone who thinks of a doctor as nothing more than a service provider, then by all means shop around until you find someone you like. I struggle to believe that your current GP will miss your custom.

Additional: To fix the problem, you need more doctors in general practice who want to stay in Canberra. This means incentives are needed to attract doctors to become GPs in Canberra. The *only* incentive I was ever provided with was that it would probably easier to work part time and have a family, something that is proving ever more elusive in the specialist training pathways.

Additionalx2: I still can’t believe you think doctors would charge you money for not turning up to an appointment.

Here’s a solution, that no doubt – you being a doctor and so pious, will just pull apart anyway – but how about you employ a messaging system that tells your patients that you’re running behind. This would only need to be employed on the occasion where the doctor is running very late – and unless this happens a lot, shouldn’t actually cost that much. Not only will you save yourself the hassle of a ‘random’ jo slamming you on the riot act – you’ll also get a warm fuzzy feeling inside which comes with the realisation, that you’re also indirectly letting your patients know that you appreciate their time, custom and patience. Seeing as it could be automated, it wouldn’t take away from all that other important work surgery staff do – like, booking appointments that won’t be kept or liasing with labs.

Now, I don’t really think it’s my position to devise a system that works but seeing as you ask, I’ll give it a whirl.

Firstly, expand the standard consultation out to 20 minutes. While this may, as you or others have suggested, mean that the doctor has less time to see as many patients as they can, surely it would mean a better service and a reduced wait. Another rioter posted that their doctor already has a standard 20 minutes consultation time and subsequently, he/she rarely, if ever, runs late.

Secondly, perhaps those patients, known to the doctor to be either;

1) experiencing complext medical conditions or
2) repeated offenders looking for attention never keeping to a time frame

Perhaps, the doctor should have a policy where these patients are advised, and then just made to, have the longer 40 minute consultation; people who have complext conditions, are typically covered by the Medicare Safety Net after they hit a number of claims, so their treatment fee (after rebate) shouldn’t leave them penniless. Those who are just nuiscence patients – and having had a lot of experience with oldies – who, lets face it, are concerned about everything should be strongly encouraged to make a longer appointment time – or else the practice will do it for them. Maybe they’ll go elsewhere, but either way – they will not be taking a 15 minute appointment and turning it into a 45 minute chit chat, moan, more chit chat, script recommendation, exit strategy.

You say, that making the sessions 20 minutes long would mean the doctor would see less patients, but heck – I’m still a patient, I waited 75 minutes and I was still in there for 5 minutes and the quality of my consultation was not thorough – I was still asking questions when the doctor was getting up to open the door. The system does not work, so fix it – if it means the doctor can only see 20 patients a day instead of 30 but that those patients are well consultated and not inconvenienced whilst sick and miserable then they’re likely to have happier patients who will keep coming back.

Anyone who says their happy to wait 75 minutes, is clearly more tolerant than I (more power to you, relly), or just has nothing better to do (which is what I suspect).

Fisher Family Practice is good. Only trouble is that there’s not a hope in hell of getting in as a new patient. My wife couldn’t get in and they were quite abrupt about it.

The problem with all these people that suggest that your health is more important than your job or running late, miss that if you have children who get sick often or have an ongoing problem then those really big waits can become a real problem and can affect your employment.

If as, JumpingTurkey suggests, our health is so pivotal on good GPs and if there is such a shortage that people can’t even get in to see a GP, then we have something seriously wrong with the system. We need to start looking at the whole GP thing. Can we reduce the training load and have levels of GPs? Can we import more foreign doctors? Can we apply some new technological solutions? Breakdown of an essential service calls for a radical rethink of how that service is provided.

I get a bit annoyed about the harping on of training required to be a Doctor. Lots of jobs require a hell of a lot of training, some jobs also involve lives at risk and are paid a lot less than a GP let alone a specialist. A Doctor can also practice for a very long time. Those same tradies discussed earlier are most unlikely to have long careers as heavier work takes a toll, they still have to do training and low paying apprenticeships.

But with many (not all) GPs, it has become the norm, rather than the exception.

Like I said – post a solution. Given a span of hours, provide times for two lengths of appointment, then show how you predict / adapt to these appointments running for a unpredictable length of time to keep all subsequent appointments on time. At any given time, set out how you will determine the time that will pass between now and an appointment slot x places in the future so that you can inform the holder of that slot in a manner that won’t make them wait more than 15 minutes.

Fisher Family Practice, its modern, patient focused and at last count 10-12 wonderful doctors.

Lienna – I’m not a random person on a forum, I’m a patient who values their health, time, work as well as the courteous behaviour of others.

If a doctor wants to jerk people around with their time, and fail to advise of excessive delays by using a simple SMS system or phoning the patient (which other rioters have said their doctor’s surgery does use)then, in short, a doctor can expect to have a rioter who is also a patient get angry about it.

If I had have been so rude as to not turn up to my appointment at all, no doubt they would have worked out how to use that phone, put off all that stakeholder liasing they apparently do, and phoned me asking for my $75 standard fee – but apparently, I can’t expect as much as an apology if I turn up on time and am still waiting close to 90 minutes.

Who was talking about my double standards before – oh yeah, a doctor rioter.

Lienna – you miss the point, I’m not dismissive of a doctor who cares for their patients – I am however dismissive of their holier than thou attitude, that means it’s ok to make people wait more than a reasonable windor of time. Next time you make an appointment for anything, a dinner reservation whatever – and you are told to wait an hour and a half – tell us all what you thought of the situation, please.

I don’t have an important job and I don’t think my job is more important than my health, but I do appreciate it when people (doctors included and their staff as well as cafe staff, tradies, office managers) are kind enough to appreciate the personal and professional time of the other half of the meeting party.

Did I get an apology from the doctor when I finally got seen to? No, I didn’t. When I politely raise the fact I had been waiting nearly 90 minutes for my appointment – was the doctor qually courteous? No, instead I belittled and made to feel that it’s to be expected and please get out now, I have 75 minutes to catch up on.

Next time I’m very late for anything, or maybe late to take a coffee or sandwich to a waiting customer I’m going to try the ‘I’m not on holidays, in case you can’t see I work very hard, my sandwiches are above par’ response and see how it goes with the customer.

I think a doctor should have to provide basic customer service.

My family doctor was ALWAYS late, so late that you knew if you were running 10-15mins late the reception staff would giggle at you when you would call to notify – “don’t worry love he’s about 30mins late” it got to the point where he was such a good doctor you didn’t mind waiting.

These days receptionists get grumpy if you call up to see if they are “on time”. One of the practices I used to go to had signs up – Appointments are only 15mins in duration, should you require longer, please book 2 spots/extended appointment.

I think if doctors were more persistant in forcing patients to obide by a rule like this, wait times wouldn’t be so bad.

And I’m sorry I agree with the OP – if I have an appointment at 4pm. I want to be seen within 10-15mins of my appointment time.

@Pandanus77 please share?? 🙂

Pandanus77 – please tell us where your doctor is!

SMS technology and phone calls – previously only reserved for those lowly hairdressers – I thought it would never come to this!

Personally I’ll wait. My health is more important than my job.

pptvb said :

WOW!
Didn’t this get nasty?
My mate, a “Tradie”, turned up 10 minutes late to a GP’s house one day….the GP went off her nut!
“How dare he make her wait?”
“Do you know how valuable my time is??”
He just pissed himself laughing.

HA HA yep I know how this feels. I think it’s akin to a God complex..

JumpingTurkey said :

Hahaha yes sorry if I contributed to this forum turning ‘nasty’. I got a bit heated up last night because here I was as a GP working hard to try to take good care of my patients, and someone accuses me and the entire profession of being reduntant / useless and also driven by nothing but self-interest and desire to make a profit.

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. My rant was about the useless GPs who disrespect their patients by overbooking and missing appointments and then treat their upset patients like dirt, as happened to the OP, and judging by the comments has happened to several other people. Apparently that struck a nerve with you. I wonder why.

Also very amusing to see all the concern trolls rushing in to defend the disrepectful behaviour of obnoxious doctors. Doctors are unjustifiably placed on a high pedestal in Australia. As somebody else so eloquently wrote; doctors are service providers, essential and valuable for sure, but they are not unlike other professionals, and they could learn a thing or two about customer service.

Kudos to the progressive doctors who actually do care about their patients; informing them of delays and keeping their scheduled appointments. Sadly a rare breed.

We struck it lucky when we moved to Canberra 8 years ago in that we found a doctors surgery that is modern and progressive in the way it runs its practice (i.e. customer focused). Sure sometimes we need to wait a little while (15-20 minutes) but rarely. The bonus is that they use SMS to remind you of appointments and have at time phones us to let us know that they are running behind schedule.

I guess that their progressive customer focus could be why they keep attracting new doctors to their practice and have been actively growing it for some years. Doctors like many other professionals (lawyers,dentists, etc) are just service providers, sure the service they provide is an essential service, for which they study a considerable amount of time for, but they could learn about customer service from other areas of the service industry. I reckon that my doctors practice has done this and that is the reason for its success.

I’ve never had any thing other than a courteous, prompt and understanding service from a GP in Australia.

Some here are prepared (mainly for others) to take a rushed consultation, a potentially life threatening rushed consultation, so that they are not inconvenienced.

When I see a GP, as rare as that event may be, it is for bloody good reason. Do I care if others are slightly inconvenienced, by my doctor checking out what is wrong with me to the best of their ability, in an appropriate amount of time?

Do I bollocks.

Welcome to the real world, sorry we could not rearrange the whole medical system all to suit your convenience.

Some people suffer from NBPE, and nead treatment.

I had to check it wasn’t my other half who posted this, as it is a hobby horse of his. (Don’t these people know how valuable my time is, etc.) The time we had to wait for two hours to see our obstetrician I nearly wet myself at his rant – although to be fair that was mainly due to the 800mls of water I had to drink beforehand so that the ultrasound would be effective.
As he knows, if you want to go somewhere else, no-one is stopping you; if you think the health system in the ACT has been appallingly managed for too long, and that we need more doctors, better pay for all health workers & proper parking at TCH, well then tell your local pollies. And don’t stop until they do something about it. Above all, don’t take it out on your GP and their staff. That will get you nowhere. It’s not their fault there aren’t enough GPs to go around. Jon and Katy, however…
P.S. There is one doctor in Canberra who won’t see you if you’re 5 mins late to your appointment, as I have learned to my chagrin – never keep a certain allergist waiting!

… and the big problem is that the argument ends up taking part in universal terms (i.e. ALL doctors do this, ALL patients are like this, etc.) when the truth is, like anything else, there are practices that spend a lot of time and effort on planning and effective patient management, and there are those that need to work at it a bit harder.

Hahaha yes sorry if I contributed to this forum turning ‘nasty’. I got a bit heated up last night because here I was as a GP working hard to try to take good care of my patients, and someone accuses me and the entire profession of being reduntant / useless and also driven by nothing but self-interest and desire to make a profit.

I think that the reason for doctors for running late is complex – it may be due to their fault, and some may think that they can run late deliberately because they are superior to patients. And this is unacceptable and unprofessional and ideally people should vote with their feet. However in many other cases they are running late for many other reasons.

However automated system for SMSing people automatically if a doctor is running behind seems like a good idea – and something that would be worthwhile mentioning to your GP next time you see them. Chances are that they probably don’t know that such a thing exists (I didn’t know).

I have no idea why the word “soca” was inserted into the third line of my last post – bloody iphones

I went to the Ainslie practice for years and would always be waiting around for appointments until I stopped making afternoon appointments – the soca are never late if you are booked for 8am.

Also, last time I was there $75 was for a “long appointment” one that was for 25mins not 15mins; so either they over-charged you or you inadvertently contributed to that day’s long waiting times.

And Sleaz274: General Practice is a specialisation, just like oncology or dermatology etc, many people after think cos it’s “general” it’s not a serious field of medicine with years of specialist training.

I now go to a new practice in Kingston where only younger people seem to go (Ainslie is so blue-rinse) it’s sooo much quicker, newer, nicer and the GPs there have come from other Canberra surgeries where I get the feeling they were tired of only dealing with oldies.

If I were a practice manager, I’d schedule the doctors for “study” from 2 to 3 each day which would be cut if they fell behind during the day. They need to read their Australian Doctor and MJA anyway, right? So why not put it in the middle of the afternoon when energy levels tend to drop a little, and they just won’t have the mojo to catch up if they’re behind time? There’s less pressure on them that way. This time can also be set aside for admin work, CPD, and other “doctor” stuff that happens behind the scenes.

I’d grant them a lunch hour if they were on time but only a half hour if they need to catch up.

Ideally I’d also segment appointments since the person getting their chronic condition checked up can wait but you need to save some next-day and same-day appointments for when someone suddenly catches the flu (or whatever).

Anyone else have any suggestions for how our doctors can keep their calendars running efficiently? Or are you just blowing off steam?

nhand42 said :

Doctors are selfish. Simple as that.

Think of it this way; 5 customers per hour, 8 hours, that’s 40 patients with an accumulative delay by the end of the day of 75 minutes. So an average is 40*75/2 = 1500 minutes of wasted time by the customers. That’s 25 wasted hours per day.

This is all so the doctor can charge for 40 customers per day rather than 35 customers per day. Those extra customers pay for his BMW, his yearly holiday to the Mediterranean, and his expensive golf club fees. He couldn’t care less about you; he’s counting his money. He could solve the problem by reducing the bookings per day by 10%, but why would he do that when you’ll wait anyway?

Notice how I kept saying “customer” rather than “patient”. That’s because doctors run a business. They’re in it for the money. And that’s reflected in the obnoxious way they treat their customers by packing us in like sardines and disrespecting us when they can’t keep to their own damned schedule. Imagine if we turned up 75 minutes late and demanded to be seen. Simply wouldn’t happen.

Screw the doctors. The only reason we have them is because the law says we’re not allowed to prescribe the actually useful medicines to ourselves. So the doctors have a monopoly on prescribing medicine, which means they get to set the rules and the fees, and the whole corrupt system flows from that.

Hmmm would you happen to be wearing a tin foil hat?

I had to see a specialist and the waiting list was 2 months. When I got there I had to wait about 45 minutes. Then the 2nd appointmentwas 6 weeks later I had another appointment and had to wait an hour and 20 minutes 🙁

WMC, there’s a difference between events conspiring to make you late on the occasional basis – I think everyone is mature enough to realise that this happens and work around it.

But with many (not all) GPs, it has become the norm, rather than the exception. What’s worse, it has become so much the norm that the expectation is that patients should expect it. It’s a poor practice in any business, regardless of how much Western culture deifies doctors.

Incidentally:

When you go to the doctor, and they’re running late – sometimes very late – it really throws your schedule out of whack, right? Maybe you have to cancel other appointments, or you’re late to other meetings, or you have to reschedule?

I’m sure the first thing that crosses your mind when this happens is ‘Wow, I’m so incompetent. Why can’t I plan ahead to take account of stuff like this?’ Somebody calls to see if you’re still OK to meet: you say you’ll be late, but you’re not sure how long, and they get on a website and complain about you, right?

Yeah, right. When one things throws your day out you’re hard done by. But when twenty things compound to throw a doctor’s day out, they’re an idiot.

‘Double standards’, indeed.

WOW!
Didn’t this get nasty?
My mate, a “Tradie”, turned up 10 minutes late to a GP’s house one day….the GP went off her nut!
“How dare he make her wait?”
“Do you know how valuable my time is??”
He just pissed himself laughing.

Maybe it’s because I just pick good doctors or have just been lucky, but I’ve rarely waited more than about 15 min’s to get in to see the Doc once I turn up. Sometimes they can see me straight away even when I’ve been early! One exception to this was the old Melba medical centre many years ago, (80’s) when my normal GP wasn’t available. I made an appointment but still had to wait around 50 minutes because the nurse on the desk ran a triage systems where patients were prioritised. But even then, I was a teenager with a stuffed knee which even I could see didn’t compare with sick pregnant women or people with chest pains.

To the OP: maybe it was just one of those days for the Doctor. Did everybody that saw him have an appointment? Did they have more serious issues that required more time or were there just numerous queue jumpers, indicating a failed system? Knowing this could make a difference to your day.

When I read this thread I was so outraged I soiled myself a little.

Thanks Doc, There are alot of ungrateful pompous arses on here, I do appreciate the work you doctors put in here in Canberra, haven’t these people above heard there is a shortage of doctor’s in Canberra? I always ring in first to see where I am in the line, my doctor has told me himself how busy he is, and yes he does work non stop, when he’s finished with patients he does the paperwork that is required of a doctor. I was in Sydney on the weekend and needed an appointment with a doctor, I only waited 5 mins without an appointment, of course this was in Bondi, they have plenty of doctors there.

JumpingTurkey said :

However if you kept on believing and insisting that you don’t need doctors and you can make all the health decisions without them, then what else are you but a fool? In case you are going to quote me out of context again, note that I have never said that doctors are making decisions for you – I am simply insisting that for important medical decisions, you need their input and advice – and if you were a reasonable person I am sure that you’ll agree to this.

Actually we don’t needs doctors all the time, yet our system more or less forces us to see doctors. In the UK there are many services that can be done by trained nurses (as opposed to doctors) and it works. You say we need more doctors, but maybe what we need is to liberalise our views a little and consider other options to deliver GP services.

Also despite your ranting you have not explained why doctor surgeries in particular have such poor customer service. Yes different patients have different requirements and some will go overtime, but still no excuse for some of the policies that some surgeries seem to have in relation to this.

Just because a doctor cares for the sick doesn’t mean he needs to take crap from a random person on a forum.

Good luck making your own health decisions.

You’ll need it. At least you won’t be wasting a doctor’s time.

@MrPC – I think triage system is not a bad idea, and there can be some innovative solutions to this problem of GP shortage if we had nurse practitioners and GPs working together. However nurse practitioners may not be a good solution either because more nurse practitioners means less nurses and currently we have a nurse shortage as well! Not only in hospitals but in nursing homes – and when I do my weekly rounds, I see nurses running around like headless chooks trying to take care of overwhelming number of residents.
I think the government has really got to try and entice more people into health professions in general – e.g. by increasing pays and improving working conditions for nurses and doctors in hospitals and also more men should be encouraged to enter nursing profession as well!

As for the dentist analogy: if everybody who went to the doctor needed a check-up of the same piece of anatomy, or one of a small number of consistent and predictable services to that same piece of anatomy, scheduling would be a breeze – particularly when diagnosis is separate to treatment. ‘You need a filling – come back Tuesday’. ‘You need a crown and two caps – come back Friday week’. Change your dentist to a model where people can rock up with something as vague as ‘I don’t feel well’, increase their scope to the entire human body, compound diagnosis with treatment, and chuck in the risk of life-threatening conditions and see how far you get.

It’s pretty obvious why you’re not a doctor.

Do you need to go to uni to plan ahead like this

Yes, actually. An enormous computer helps, too. People write PhD theses on scheduling. It’s hard. NP hard, if you add time lags you can’t predict – you know, like doctors.

But please, share your solution. Start at 8am, finish at 6pm. How many slots do you set aside? How long is each slot? How long is your short appointment, how long is your long? How do you predict which will run over, and which will run short, and how do you manage this from appointment to appointment? When somebody calls and asks ‘how long?’, and you look at the waiting room and see 5 people, what’s your answer? Do you think it’s just a matter of saying ‘oh well, today we’ve been running at an average of 11 minutes, so about an hour?’ Because if you believe that I’ve got a roulette system you might like to buy.

Why, given the presence of a vast amount of research about the computational impracticalities of working out even fairly basic schedules that involve uncertainty, do you choose to believe that doctors – people with up to a decade of tertiary education, literally our brightest minds – are lazy or incompetent or both?

Don’t answer – I already know. “Well, I’m not a doctor, and have a grossly simplistic and inaccurate understanding of what’s involved in working out a daily schedule around unpredictable and unquantifiable uncertainty, but I’m convinced they’re all idiots. What they need is a good dose of my folksy common sense about how easy it all is.”

@nhand42: first of all, you are not my patient, and you are the one who started accusing me of not knowing logistic regression / and then accused me of being a cast member of wizard of oz.

And I’ve never wrote anything about ‘common people’ – these are your quotations, not mine. Have a look through my post and all I have been doing is responding to your comments that doctors are simply there to profit out of patients, and that you are capable of making medical decisions without seeing a doctor. And seriously you have got to read things into context – the point about the long GP training is made in order to compare how much dentists get paid (relative to their shorter years in training).

You are right – I am showing you an attitude but you are wrong – my attitude is directed only at you, who reduce our hardworking doctors (and many other health professionals) who have spent many years of training and spend many hours in order to primarily help other people into bunch of money hungry blood suckers.

As for your information – yes I don’t know much about logistic regression and yes to be honest I did not see the divided by 2 there – assumed it was 40*75. However I do not claim to be an expert in logistic regression and I am happy to be corrected.

However if you kept on believing and insisting that you don’t need doctors and you can make all the health decisions without them, then what else are you but a fool? In case you are going to quote me out of context again, note that I have never said that doctors are making decisions for you – I am simply insisting that for important medical decisions, you need their input and advice – and if you were a reasonable person I am sure that you’ll agree to this.

JumpingTurkey said :

If I am from wizard of Oz, then you are a FOOL.

What a wonderful bedside manner you have, doctor. This discussion started because of a rude doctor who believed his time was so much more valuable than his patient (!) customers. It was that condescending attitude from the doctor that got the OP so fired up. It is such expected behaviour from doctors; they can’t wait to tell you about their 6+3 years training, and how all the uneducated “common people” couldn’t _possibly_ hope to diagnose their own ailments, and as such the uneducated people deserve to wait for the judgement of the mighty doctor, and then arrogantly dismiss any dissent because (in your own words) the dissenters must be “fools”. This holier-than-thou attitude is unfortunately all too common amongst doctors.

An attitude which you so aptly demonstrated in a mere half dozen posts. Impressive. Some sort of record I suspect.

And as you’re the person who couldn’t even follow the maths behind 40*75/2, you really should be more careful throwing the word “fool” around.

Short term solution: Stuff the small time GPs. Take a slight interest in how to summarise your medical history in a few sentences and take your chances with the roulette wheel of doctors at the Ginninderra or Phillip medical centres.

If you don’t want to pay the $30 gap upfront, or wait 2 hours, then go to the Walk-In centre in that gully next door to Emergency at TCH, which is free, but is primarily staffed by nurse practitioners.

Long term solution: Since we will never train a significant number of GPs (it’s an ineffective model of care as it isn’t scalable) then the powers that be need to train up nurse practitioners to act as both triage and minor duties. If the nurse practitioner thinks you aren’t there to have a free 15 minute chat on medicare’s dollar (as many pensioners and health care card users do regularly) they will be able to intercept the geezers and keep the real doctors free to quickly take the consultations for those who are actually sick.

@nhand42: You’ve got to learn to read quotes in context – you’ve selectively quoted what I wrote:
“nhand42, if your attitude is that way to doctors, then basically you are saying that you think that you are capable of making all the decisions yourself so you can determine what disease you have, you can examine your own body, you can make decisions on best treatment options, and you can prescribe yourself and be able to work out how you can monitor yourself for side effects? I really doubt that you can sustain that attitude and philosophy throughout your life.”
I don’t think that anyone of sane mind would think that one can make informed decisions about things that they have no idea about without getting advice from experts – e.g. I’m a complete fool if I actually believed that I could sue somebody without getting advice from a lawyer, or if I thought that I could treat my dog’s sore ear without consulting a vet first. If I am from wizard of Oz, then you are a FOOL.

@nhand42 – this is unfair – I am sure that you won’t be kept waiting at all if the GP could charge you the same amount as your dentist does – who knows how much they charge – mine charges something like $200 for a 20 minute appointment where they do the same thing – inspection of teeth, scaling, and then tooth whitening – and if you could continue opening your mouth during the consultation so you can’t actually speak to me and thus make the time tick past.
And this is for a dentist who requires 5 years of university training and no internship – vs 6 years medical school for a GP + internship + residency + 3 years of GP training.

And you go on and on about $75 but don’t forget that you get $35 back from medicare.

OpenYourMind said :

how come I get consistently good, if expensive, service from dentists.

Same experience here. My dentist is always on time. Never keeps me waiting. Always quotes accurately. Keeps me informed. And his entire staff are polite and professional. It’s an absolute delight going to the dentist.

Contrast this with the experience of the OP; hour and a quarter wait, unhelpful receptionist, a rude doctor who slams the door in his face, and then a $75 charge for a 5 minute consult. Unbelievable. Name and shame.

@openyourmind
You know what the difference between vets and humans are? The vets charge you $90 for a basic consultation and then they sell you medications for a huge mark up – I’ve had my cat who was constipated and it cost us $1000 to fix him up… no kidding! And no one complains about money you pay to vets… If I could charge $90 for a consultation and then sell you a box of panadol for a 1000% markup then I’d be more than happy to see only 2 patients per hour…

As for your comment regarding GPs skills lying between nurses and specialists – well its because of attitudes like yours that result in doctors not wanting to enter general practice, and research clearly shows (landmark research by Starfield and Shi – google it if you are not sure) that strong General practice system and strong primary care health service is a much stronger predictor of good health care outcomes in a community or a country – whereas strong specialist or tertiary health sector is NOT a good predictor of good health outcomes – in fact it often works in reverse believe it or not in case of US.

JumpingTurkey said :

nhand, your arithmetic is wrong because you are assuming that all 40 patients will be waiting 75 minutes each – when most likely only people towards end of the day (or morning) will be waiting that long.

Nope. I used 40/2 which is a linear progression from 0 minutes wait for the first customer and 75 minutes wait for the last. Try and keep up.

JumpingTurkey said :

nhand42, if your attitude is that way to doctors, then basically you are saying that you think that you are capable of making all the decisions yourself

If your comment says what I think it says, then basically you are saying you think you are a cast member in the Wizard of Oz.

I know somewhere you can visit where appointments are kept, you get cheerful highly qualified medical staff and your business is important. The only catch is you’ll need fur, feathers or scales. I still recall taking a dog to our vet with an injured paw. The whole practice was genuinely concerned, they did examinations and x-rays on the spot, were careful not to hurt the boy and rang up that night just to check he was still ok. Why do we get this with our pets, and yet we humans get treated like cr@p by GPs? And before you say, well they’re just a vet, how different is it really? and also, if being human is really so different, how come I get consistently good, if expensive, service from dentists.

GPs aren’t even that special if you ask me. Half the time they are dealing with something that a nurse could diagnose and prescribe for, the other half they refer you to specialists. Ok, maybe there’s a tiny bit in the middle of those two halves where they actually do something other than d1ck you around. RiotACTers bitch about taxis needing to be de-regulated, hell let’s do something to open up the closed shop medical profession.

@nhand42

What? A GP gets to drive a BMW and have yearly European holidays??

Wow, I should have signed up to be a GP then, because, y’know, my father is a rural GP (no bulk billing there), and he drives a Mitsubishi, and I think the furthest I ever went as a kid was the coast. And he runs behind time. And then he does home visits so he’s not home until 8 pm. And my mum yells at him for missing dinner. And then he has to go BACK to work to finish off all the paperwork which he didn’t do because he was too busy seeing patients.

Yeah, great life there.

He’s totally in it for the money.

nhand, your arithmetic is wrong because you are assuming that all 40 patients will be waiting 75 minutes each – when most likely only people towards end of the day (or morning) will be waiting that long.

nhand42, if your attitude is that way to doctors, then basically you are saying that you think that you are capable of making all the decisions yourself so you can determine what disease you have, you can examine your own body, you can make decisions on best treatment options, and you can prescribe yourself and be able to work out how you can monitor yourself for side effects? I really doubt that you can sustain that attitude and philosophy throughout your life.

nhand42, there are some doctors who does treat patients like customers and are in it for money. But this is the case for all professions – what profession is exempt? Clergy, politicians, accountants, lawyers, nurses, pharmacists – you could go through every single profession or occupation in the land and you could argue that all of them are out to get you or are dodgy. However most doctors and GPs that I know do care about patients – especially to those who do need our help the most – people who are seeking our help with depression or mental disorders, or people who don’t have anywhere to turn to, or people with multiple chronic illnesses who take a gazillion medications, people with chronic pain, people who genuinely cannot afford to pay.
I suspect that you are someone who has enjoyed a quite a healthy life so far so you probably have never found a need to form a long trusting relationship with a GP, and so you obviously have absolutely no idea on what GPs do or how much GPs care for their patients.

I don’t know of many other professions willing to continue to do home visits (bulk billed) and nursing home visits (bulk billed and medicare is very stingey with these) for elderly patients who really cannot afford to pay and are unable to come into surgery. Whatever profession you are in, are you willing to do that???

Great to see that this subject is getting some air time – and lively debate. Alas, I’m on the side of Schmeah for this one.

We have had to wait……………..wait for it……….3.5hrs to see a specialist in the inner north. And this isn’t an unusual time wait for this particular surgery. And we are not alone. I have seen patients walk out, shout out, come out…….in some cases I am sure we’ve celebrated birthdays in the waiting room such has been the length of delays.

Oh sure, the doctors a busy man/woman…….the doctor is thorough, the doctor sees everyone, the doctors this and what have you. BUT SO ARE WE!

As someone said, we are busy also. I asked a receptionist once where I could send the bill for my time (after a wait of 2hrs or so). By the way, in this case humour in a waiting room doesn’t go down that well.

But there really needs to be a solution…….this waiting, waiting, waiting really is poor.

Noezis said :

Do you even know how a doctor’s surgery works?

As a patient he shouldn’t have to know. The doctor does know and he should schedule accordingly. Why should the patient be expected to know the inner machinations of a doctor’s practise?

Why is it that every other industry understands the phrase “Customer Focus”, but doctors think they’re oh-so-special that they can keep treating us like crap? There’s only one answer; because they can get away with it. Every visit to a doctor involves a rude receptionist, an even ruder doctor, and an obligatory 1-2 hour wait. If any other business treated you like that you’d go elsewhere.

Even Telstra, the best example of useless customer service in Australia, has achieved the impossible. My last experience with Telstra was … and God forgive me for saying this … PLEASANT. They’ve completely changed direction in the past 12 months. No doubt because they were losing customers to their competitors. If Telstra can do it, why can’t doctors?

As a practicing GP (who knows, maybe the very surgery you are all talking about??!!) I can see that many people are upset by long waiting times. And of course I could understand that no one likes waiting – including myself – for instance if it took the waiting staff 30 minutes to get me a menu in a restaurant.

And in some cases yes you have a genuine cause for complaint – doctors do run late for personal reasons or they come to work late or they take a longer lunch break, etc. And this is not professional and you should vote with your feet – ideally – and find someone else who is willing to treat their patients with respect.

But in other cases as many people in this forum have pointed out, being late is often beyond our control. This is especially the case due to GP shortages in Canberra. Most GPs are booked out, so its not as if we can choose to see less patients – if we did then everyone would have to wait longer to see GPs – not just 2 hours, but 2 days, even if you wanted to see someone urgently.

If patients are booked in at 15 minute intervals, then some people will finish early and some people will finish late. But if one finishes early, then often the next patient has not arrived yet, so the doctor will not be able to run earlier than time. However if one finishes late, then this will become reflected in every single patient afterwards until there are a couple of patients who only take a few minutes each. And often people who have waited for 2 hours will want to see their GP for longer – and feel that they deserve to – meaning that patients after them will need to wait even longer. And many patients simply take longer, and this cannot be predicted in advance. If someone rocks in and then starts to cry spontaneously (and this happens on average once every couple of days) then our heart sinks as this automatically takes at least 45 minutes, and you’ve got to be kidding if we can somehow predict this in advance and limit the consultation to 15 minutes.

And the suggestion about making changes to appointment system from 15 minutes to something longer – while this will make it more convenient and reduce waiting times, this will effectively reduce the number of patients a doctor can see in a day – thus putting additional pressure on doctor shortages. And also this will mean that doctors will increase their fees – and no GP in their right mind will book in 6 patients per hour as someone here suggested, but they book in 4 patients per hour, and no its not $75 per patient, but believe it or not I think that at least 25% of my patients are bulk billed – those who really cannot afford to come to see me I choose to bulk bill them and I think many GPs do this too – I just don’t advertise this fact because if I did then I’ll get everyone asking to be bulk billed (like many of you lot in this forum who I suspect can easily afford to pay a doctor as you’d be willing to lay off $100 easily on a Friday night on dinner and drinks but are too cheap to spend $35 out of pocket to see a doctor).

The solution is that we need more GPs, plain and simple. These kinds of problems don’t happen in inner city Melbourne or Sydney because they have enough GPs to service the population. So let’s stop blaming the GPs, and let’s focus on the real issue of getting more GPs into Canberra!

Doctors are selfish. Simple as that.

Think of it this way; 5 customers per hour, 8 hours, that’s 40 patients with an accumulative delay by the end of the day of 75 minutes. So an average is 40*75/2 = 1500 minutes of wasted time by the customers. That’s 25 wasted hours per day.

This is all so the doctor can charge for 40 customers per day rather than 35 customers per day. Those extra customers pay for his BMW, his yearly holiday to the Mediterranean, and his expensive golf club fees. He couldn’t care less about you; he’s counting his money. He could solve the problem by reducing the bookings per day by 10%, but why would he do that when you’ll wait anyway?

Notice how I kept saying “customer” rather than “patient”. That’s because doctors run a business. They’re in it for the money. And that’s reflected in the obnoxious way they treat their customers by packing us in like sardines and disrespecting us when they can’t keep to their own damned schedule. Imagine if we turned up 75 minutes late and demanded to be seen. Simply wouldn’t happen.

Screw the doctors. The only reason we have them is because the law says we’re not allowed to prescribe the actually useful medicines to ourselves. So the doctors have a monopoly on prescribing medicine, which means they get to set the rules and the fees, and the whole corrupt system flows from that.

It’s an in demand service. Times blow out. You can always go and wait in Emergency at the hospitals.

I can understand your being frustrated…but did you feel as if you got a quality consult? If so, please consider that he (or she) was providing that same quality consult for you as he was for other patients that were likely just as or more complex than your presenting problem. He/she was likely just trying to provide decent care and his commentary was a result of frustration with people not appreciating how hard he was working at trying to make sure that he was spending an appropriate amount of time with each patient. And anyway: WHO SAYS that a doctor’s consult has to be 15 minutes??? I would like to think the doctor (or nurse) will spend as much time as necessary to ensure that I get the correct assessment, diagnosis, and treatment…regardless of the queue waiting outside the consult room.

The suggestion is not that doctor’s should practice 7 minute medicine, but instead allocate more than 15 minutes for each patient especially if it’s a regular happening at certain times (flu season) or with certain people. Do you need to go to uni to plan ahead like this and to know that people don’t really like waiting for excessive periods – and yes I call 75 minutes with an appointment close to excessive (if I was at the Canberra Hospital, I’d probably be pretty happy with that turn around).

I appreciate that people need time with their doctors and this doctor is clearly happy with their thorough treatment (but apparently it was OK to stand up halfway through my health questions, indicating that my session was over – I guess you have to make up 75 minutes where ever you can and the kids no doubt still at the baby sitters waiting to be picked up) but if it means sick people are all sitting around breathing each others funk, or people have to reschedule the rest of their day and parents which restless children are waiting for long periods, then maybe we should all just go and wait at the Canberra Hospital. It’ll take only twice as long and not cost anything.

If a doctor ordered a sandwich from me and I took an hour to get it to them, would they be happy with the ‘I’m not on holidays in here’ attitude? I’m sure they wouldn’t take it very well at all.

I don’t see why everyone thinks it’s ok for Doctors to disregard people’s time and bookings in this manner -do you turn up to meetings an hour late and not even apologise to the people you left waiting – because I never got one? If your taxi turned up an hour late and you missed your fight would you be upset? Or are you happy to just spend your living hours waiting for other people to finally get around to meeting their half of the arrangement, and to hell with other plans you had made, jobs you had to do, kids you had to pick up or dinner you wanted to cook, or roast you left in the oven because your doctor .. your precious, above basic expectations doctor was too busy to see you at the right time, or to rude to advise you to make another appointment.

apologies J Jones – my post was directed at VG who seems to have a bottomless tolerance for doctors not keeping appointments – although apparently, only having waited 6 minutes with a sick child .. yeah, not sure what part of my ‘I’m happy to wait 30 minutes’ statement didn’t register there.

So it’s okay for GPs to constantly be running late and have people waiting for hours on end because … they’re busy?

Try it yourself. Divide your day into 32 discrete 15 minute chunks, a different task for each. See how long it takes you to slide. Now your day is halfway as complex as a doctor expected to practice 7 minute medicine.

You can fight it, or you can make assume you’re going to be late, make an appointment for earlier than you need, and call ahead.

Hi Jim Jones – FYI my dentist also uses the SMS system, and has for the whole time I’ve been seeing them – this technology is hardly revolutionary and keeping an appointment should discriminate against professions. Do you turn up an hour late for your meetings, or interviews?

Sorry to use the hair dresser example – tomato tomato.

I appreciate some people need extra time with the Dr, hence why I said I’m happy to wait 30 minutes – but was everyone having a health crisis on this day? Or can the Dr just not keep appointment times. Or were they so desperate to get as many people in as possible that they didn’t forward plan to beyond 3pm?

I once waited at Kingston for 1 hour past my appointment time – the doctor is nice and the only reason I stopped going there was because I moved out of the area – I didn’t ask to be Bulk Billed but they did anyway, because they clearly appreciate their responsibility to keep to some form of schedule.

I’d rather wait at my wonderful doctor’s Ainslie practice than pay the doubling of the fees that they would have to introduce, to go anywhere near guaranteeing an appointment time. My doctor is incredibly thorough and spends all the time needed with any patient. I’ve made other patients’ appointments late in my time, when I’ve needed a long consultation. My doctor has spent up to 45 minutes with me. So when I am made to wait for an hour by another patient, I assume that the doctor is needing to allocste the unexpected time (and possibly saving the system high care costs further down the track), and I suck it up happily. I always take a book to read, or nip over to the nearby shops for fifteen minutes.

I attend this practice, and have for the past 2.5 years.

I previously used a practice in Woden, where there usually wasnt much of a wait, but had a couple of issues totally misdiagnosed, whereas after swapping to my current Ainslie Doctor, he is very very throrough.

I’d happily wait for my appointment, I’ve recently waited 75 mins there last month, but for me thats peace of mind of my doctor doing a good job.

Or here’s an option…

You go do the 8 years of medical study, combined with associated HELP debt then fork out the cash and guarantees to open up your own GP rack up the likely 10-15 years experience your doctor has then open close by offering to see every patient promptly on their appointment time and give a refund if they have to wait at all. There is obviously a gap in the market and huge pent up demand.

Do not get seduced by making more money as a specialist, surgeon or doctor overseas and do not at any time fail to diagnose any type of potential life threatening or permanently debiliating disease/injury.

I wish you the absolute best in your new path in life. Good luck.

Wow I can’t believe how vicious these responses are.

Why would doctor’s be immune from basic customer service expectations that are realised in many other service-based industries.

This attitude that “that’s just how it is” is just plain dumb. That attitude managed to delay the introduction of instant banking until 2010, for example. If enough customers kick up a stink/change doctors, the problem will have to be addressed.

Unfortunately my doctor’s sugery won’t tell you how late they’re running. I’ve called 30 mins beforehand to ask and been told that their policy is not to provide that information. Then waited 75 min with two sick and cranky kids climbing the walls.

I try to call ahead, as I know they often run late.

When I KNOW I’m going to need longer for an appointment I try to book a longer consult time , but I do at times haev appointments that run longer than the allocated 15 minutes because things ahev come up in that time, and rather than push me out the door because “time’s up” my GP has taken the time to work through the concern. I’m very greateful for this, and of course am willing to pay for their time, and understand that nothing (or not many things) is ever as straightforward as it seems.

SCheduling longer in genera between appointments may be a solution, as the Dr proabbly can fill the time between with some of thos tasks that might wait til the end of the day if there’s a short one? Maybe?

vg said :

You’re comparing hairdressers to doctors?

Why not?

Are doctors so insanely important that they’re allowed to completely ignore their clients convenience?

Obviously there are some exceptional circumstances where patients can take a longer time than is expected and cause the doctor to run late, but when you’re consistently 30+ minutes behind in the afternoon (as my doctor is) that’s no longer an exceptional circumstance, that’s a sign that the current appointment system isn’t working correctly. As someone mentioned above, there are numerous automated solutions available to those who don’t take their customers for granted. Unfortunately, “vote with your feet” isn’t really an option with the current GP situation in Canberra.

Funnily enough, on the couple of occasions when I’ve tried to outsmart my GP by taking the first appointment in the morning (8am) they arrived 20 minutes late the first time and 55 minutes late the second. I used to see one of the other doctors at the practice rushing past me at 8:10 every morning as I walked to work. Sometimes you just can’t win.

You’re comparing hairdressers to doctors?

I hear Fonzie revving the motorbike

I was the one with the sick kid and the one thing I’ve learnt about sick kids is its best to stay calm around them. Bogans are the people that can’t manage anger

Perhaps they should consider installing some of the following technologies. You’d assume that they would be able to afford it, they are Doctors after all.

http://www.medwaittime.com/

http://www.inquicker.com/

http://he.ecitizen.gov.sg/hecorp/qwatch.aspx?id=646

http://rendezvous.technowait.com/en/index.html

Just to clarify I was never impolite in this situation, I spoke quietly and didn’t make any grand gestures or theatrics – sure I did mention that I had left work, but wouldn’t most people? Other than that I paid and left. If you can get in in 5 mins then more power to you and your doctor, but if you were having a scare with your child (as another rioter has referenced) and you had to wait this period of time, I doubt you would be calm about it.

My hair dresser uses an SMS system where your appointment time is messaged to you and any changes such as delayed appointment times (which has happened)are brought to your attention. Clearly this mechanism is automated but it did the trick – I turned up at the recommended time and only had to wait 5 minutes. Unless the practice or hairdresser was running continuously late, all the time, I wouldn’t imaging that this service would cost so much either – just on the odd occasions where accidents and emergencies happen.

KB1971 said :

I try to make my appointments first thing in the morning so I am not delayed.

That is a good idea…except for those times when you make a ‘first appointment of the day’ at 8:30am, and find yourself still sitting there at 9:00am, whilst watching the doctor sitting in his office drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper…

johnboy said :

Ah “someone somewhere else does it worse” and “it’s how we’ve always done it”.

The two responses guaranteed to make sure even simple, cheap and easy fixes never get made.

True, I was going to make a remark about the usual double standard that’s life commentary, but you summed it up better than I

Yeah it sucks but you just have to deal with it.
There could be 4 people in front of you, but they could all take 2 minutes each. There could be one person in front of you who will take an hour and a half to see.
It isn’t an exact science.
People are different.
Sicknesses are different.

It’s awesome when you get there and are told there are 2 people in front of you and they are students, because you know they are there for a certificate and mayeb a simple perscription.

It sucks when you get there and told there is 1 person in front of you and they end up being an old couple. Cos that is gonna be at least a half hour.

Tradies are the other ones that piss me off.

It’s appallingly rare for a tradie to turn up or do anything at an agreed time. I’ve moved a *lot* of business because of this sort of shenanigans.

So it’s okay for GPs to constantly be running late and have people waiting for hours on end because … they’re busy?

I’m busy, everyone I know is busy, we take all the factors into account when making appointments and leave enough grace-time to allow for some unexpected delays.

I thought doctors were supposed to be smart?

My GP is very thorough too, and fortunately he doesn’t overbook like most practices, meaning he is rarely late (and if he is, it’s only by 5-10 mins).

With the practice I used to go to, I’d usually turn up 10-15 mins late, especially if it was an afternoon appointment, because the wait time after the scheduled appointment was routinely 20-30 mins.

Re the OP’s rant, a quick phone call before you left would’ve saved you a whole lot of trouble.

Mate, I’ve already set aside 50c for motleychick. How about I put aside a couple of twenty cent coins so next time you can call ahead and not be nearly hospitalised by an outrage-triggered aneurism?

Just let me know where to send it. I’ll see if I can find a round envelope so you don’t hurt yourself on the corners.

Ah “someone somewhere else does it worse” and “it’s how we’ve always done it”.

The two responses guaranteed to make sure even simple, cheap and easy fixes never get made.

I agree that if they run that late regularly, they should change how they plan their appointments. Also, $75 x 6 = $450 per hour. Apparantly it is expensive to run a doctor’s practice, but I can see a specialist for a full hour for between $120 and $180 or $240 at most.

I call ahead too. But it’s still annoying. And if they refuse to call or text you when it gets close to being your turn, you have to keep popping in to see how they’re travelling.

I also have waited 30+ mins when I had the first appointment in the morning.

But once they start running really late – ie. more than an hour behind – that’s when you pay the price if they feel that they can get you out of their office in under 5 mins so they can try make up some of the lost time. Been there, done that too. And still paid my $75 for a less than satisfactory service.

If Google could prescribe drugs, I’d usually be better of using that and staying well clear of any GP in this town.

Like I said, more than happy to wait the odd 20 -30 minutes and read while I’m there but I don’t think a 90 minute wait is appropriate for anyone. People have lives and commitments and seeing as it takes a week to get in, having to wait another week because you’re appointment was heavily delayed is a real bind. And who really takes 2 hours of reading material to the doctor’s waiting lounge without getting a bit shirty about it?

The Medicare system is there to accomodate people who are disadvantaged, not to accomodate doctor’s who can’t keep an appointment time within some 20 % margin of error.

Apologies for the rant, I thought this was the riot act though.

I was completely outraged by this situation

DIAGNOSIS: histrionic personality disorder
TREATMENT: 25cc concrete daily
PROGNOSIS: If HTFU unsuccessful, may require STFU

I go to Ainslie, they are notoriously late, even when you phone and check. But that’s life.

Last time I was there a guy lost it at how late they were, gave the whole “you’ve just lost a customer” rant and stormed out. I thought this was hilarious. It’s a doctor’s office, not a fast food restaurant. And storming out only means you have to make another appointment and waste your time elsewhere. But cheers mate – you’ve just saved me 1 place in line!

Do you even know how a doctor’s surgery works?

First of all the receptionist takes bookings but also manages multiple calls with pathology labs, specialists and other doctors and not to mention doing all the patient paperwork, filing medical records and in particular the financial books on behalf of the doctor. So yes, them calling you to let you know that your appointment will not be on time is too much work for them.

Doctors work on a 10 to 15 minute turn around time, but as your doctor said they are generally thorough with each and every patient. I suspect you may have caught him on a day when he had two or three patients who had some medical issues which are not immediately obvious and the doctor has had to do a more comprehensive exam to determine what the issues are.
The next time you go in with a medical issue that cannot be explained immediately and the doctor examines you for 20 minutes, taking comprehensive notes on your history and possibly contacting a specialist on your behalf to get you an appointment sooner rather than later, think about the person in the waiting room swearing at the doctor for delaying their appointment.

Name and shame.

This is not at all unusual in my experience. You can ring ahead to see how late your doctor is, but I always go prepared for a ten-minute wait at minimum.

Curiously enough I attended probably the same Ainslie practice for the first time today. Little fella urgently needed attention. I rang at 1000 and they were able to squeeze me in at 1115. I duly turned up and was ushered into the surgery at 1121, a whole 6 mins late.

Completely outraged? FFS get a life.

Travel to a country where people have zero medical access or even food. Then you can use the complete part of your outrage.

Its just poor form. There are umpteen different tools the surgery could use to SMS clients from their reservation system. There is no reason you should have to expect poor service.

But you’ve clearly got enough time to write a long rant about the experience.

Yes its frustrating having to wait for a doctor but thats the way the medicare system is set up – encouraging doctors to book shorter consultation times. They also do not know ahead of time how long a consultation will last – some may be less than 5 minutes or else some may relate to complex health problems and require extra time.

For your own mental health you would be better accepting that going to see your doctor is going to take a lot of time – prepare yourself by taking something to read (or perhaps some work you can get on with) and accept that learning to wait is a fact of life.

Or else you can get yourself all outraged and what good does that achieve? I’m sure the practice isn’t thinking “oh yes that person is right, s/he should be charging us for wasting his/her time”.

It’s one thing to be that late in the late afternoon. But it is really poor when they make you wait half an hour past a 9am appointment time, as I experienced the other day!

But you are right – there’s is little respect for other people’s time, and they really need to rethink their scheduling practices.

Bank manager will be punctual – he/she’s actually afraid you’ll take your money elsewhere. Quacks in this town don’t have that fear. These sorts of wait times for doctors appears commonplace nowadays; on the upside, it suggests they’re actually giving a sh*t rather than running people through with an eye on the clock. Agree that a bigger standard window would make sense (and presumably add to the $75 standard fee).

Suck it up princess.

It’s common knowledge that doctors often run behind, so you don’t make appointments late in the morning, or late in the afternoon. If you do, you phone ahead and ask how far behind the doctor is running.

ohh how precious you are! why not think of some of us who aren’t as lucky to have a doctor and the luxury of booking an appointment its not unusual for me to wait 2-3 hrs for a dr at a medical centre

same thing happened to me in Hughes medical centre, had to wait almost an hour after the allotted appointment time. Never again will I visit that place, if I have to wait that long, shouldn’t I just go to Phillip Medical centre where GP doesn’t have an appointment based system 🙁

Er don’t want to sound snarky, but is it really that difficult to make a 30 second phone call before you head out to an appointment?

That sucks. It’s tough to plan because some people need only 5 mins and others need heaps, but it would be courteous to contact you if it was obvious that your appointment wouldn’t have been ready for a while.

I try to make my appointments first thing in the morning so I am not delayed. Delays & doctors have gone hand in hand since time began.

Did you stop to consider what emergencys may have happened during the day?

Best laid plans of mice & men & all that….