Comments on: Why Is Going to the Doctor Such a Miserable Experience?

By: Tra

Tra — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:46:34 +0000

When will be people realize that doctors are worthless. They simply want to line their pockets twice…by charging you to wait for hours for advice that a 5 year old can give, and from pharmaceutical companies by pushing their newest drugs that cause more problems than they cause.

Please people wake up. The idea of doctors and medicine is just a scam!!!!

By: Joanna M. Pineda

Joanna M. Pineda — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:00:39 +0000

I wish I had the guts to bill my doctor(s) when they make me wait. I have simply left the practice when the offenses get too bad; I wonder if these doctors even realize that their behavior and practices are driving patients away.

By: Helene

Helene — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:10:52 +0000

Where we now live, in Central Florida, there seems to be an inverse relationship: good doctor, poor staff. We’ve had some doozy experiences down here, I must say. At one office my husband’s complaint about taking time off to come in — and then being told he couldn’t see the doctor because they (the staff themselves) shouldn’t have scheduled with that particular doctor — was met with termination by the practice because he made the receptionist cry!!! (my husband is low key — if it had been me i may have been arrested!)

Speaking of being arrested — almost — I got lost on the way to a new doctor. I called the office and they said it would be ok. I was 13 minutes late when i signed in. Seven minutes later they called me up to get my prepay and give me a form to fill out. Shortly after that called me up again to tell me because I was 20 minutes late I couldn’t see him at all!!!! The protest about calling and the actual 13 minute delay was to no avail — and so my fighting with them (just using my NY voice, but not language) resulted in them calling security to escort me out of the building!!!

Now I either take referrals from Northerner friends or check out a doctor or dentist’s origins or schooling to see if they’ve been out of this area for any length of time — and that’s helping quite a bit.

By: Alyson

Alyson — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:10:51 +0000

In my experience, the better the doctor, the worse the admin staff. I love my doctors, but most of their staffs are sullen, to the point of rudeness. At my most recent doctor’s visit, the doctor kept me waiting a long time, but she apologized profusely. She said no one had told her I was waiting and I believed her.

By: Jon Faucette

Jon Faucette — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:08:55 +0000

In reference to an article in the NYT by Princeton economics professor Alan B. Krueger on patient time being a hidden cost of healthcare, I got a kick out of this comment:

Many years ago, when living and working in washington d.c., I had a dentist (whom I had the greatest respect for) but who had the very worst habit of keeping patients waiting interminably. I’d made the mistake of scheduling an appointment at lunchtime — doable, if the time waiting hadn’t been a factor.
I arrived on time, and waited in the very brightly lit office, reading very old back copies (why don’t they ever have anything current and good?) of junky magazines. I waited and waited for over an hour.
After words with his receptionist, I left. I sent the dentist a bill for my time — the waiting time, and the time of the commute, based on my annual salary, broken into the hourly value.
He deducted that amount from the next bill. I never waited again.
— Ellen