We've heard the announcement. We all know what it means when the gate agents begin announcing that they are looking for people to take later flights. We watch and listen, knowing that if no one is tempted into taking the later flight, someone will be involuntarily bumped from the flight. Thankfully and gradually, the amount of the vouchers increases until an adequate number of passengers have accepted the offer.
As passengers, we get upset, even angry when flights are oversold. As a practice, overbooking compensates airlines for customer no-shows and cancellations. Just for clarification, they purposely sell more seats than are available resulting in the extra passengers and the announcement looking for volunteers.
I contemplated the similarities between an airline gate area and the doctor's office waiting room as I sat, watching the clock, waiting for my name to be called.
I thought I had given myself the very best chance to stay on schedule. The appointment was early in the day, 9:30. I arrived 20 minutes early in case of paperwork or intake glitches. I counted the patients in the waiting room-only three including me. The time was 9:28. The door to the back section of the office opened and the nurse called a man's name. Not me. Time check: 9:29. I had to be next. The door opened again. A patient exited and began the process of scheduling his next appointment. Time check: 9:31. My schedule for the day included an 11:00 meeting. The drive home took 24 minutes. I needed an additional 2 minutes to get in the door to start the video call.
I imagined myself in an airport gate area waiting for the boarding process to begin for a flight to an amazing destination. As the minutes clicked by, I thought maybe one of the nurses would stand up and make the announcement:
Attention all patients, we're looking for a few patients with flexible schedules to take later appointments. We need 3 people to be rebooked later in the week as we are already behind for the day and it's not going to get a whole lot better. If you'll see us here at the registration desk, we'll be happy to rebook you at this time.
The time was 9:43 when the door opened and I heard my name. Not too bad really. Only 13 minutes late today, but it's morning! The afternoons are always worse.
How should medical offices run? How could buffer time be built into the schedule so that appointments could run more predictably on time for everyone?
Why do we just expect that medical offices do not run on schedule? When flights are overbooked with passengers, we expect compensation to change our schedules. But when medical offices appear to be overbooked with patients, we sit and wait.
We sit. We wait.
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