waiting, waiting

At 1pm, I had finished work, crossed a couple things off of my to do list, taken the dog out for a “business” walk and put him in his crate. I “flew” (while respecting speed limits, of course) down to Oakhurst. Chloe’s class was S…L..O…W in coming in from recess. We swung by the B&G club to get Camille and dropped her at home. I started to feel that anxiety I start to feel when I don’t have enough “extra” time to get somewhere — being late is not an option. Thankfully, each segment of the trip — yes, I break it into pieces — took less time than I gave as my conservative estimate. And we were in the office, even with a pit stop, early. Signed in at 2:22 for a 2:30 appointment.

2:30 came and went. 3:00 came and went. The waiting room crowd, for the most part, had turned over completely. At 3:30, I gave up being a patient patient and approached the desk — I am NOT assertive at doctor’s offices, and this was HARD. I asked “How much longer?” “We don’t know.” I mentioned that if I gave up my time to be here. I have other things to do and other people to care for. An estimate on how much longer shouldn’t be impossible. I was met with a somewhat sympathetic response.

And then a patient in the waiting room let me know — they had been waiting for TWO hours. And they had driven 2.5 hours to get here to the pediatric GI office. I empathized with them. Given the other patients in the office, I was reminded to count my blessings — a few hours out of my day? Really not that big of a deal.

We finally got in an exam room at 4:30. We heard the doctor in adjoining offices. And at last at 5:30pm, we saw the doctor. And were out by 5:50. As followup visit, it was pretty useless. And 5 hours of my day — gone.

Some people advise finding a new doctor — unfortunately, the waits for new patients for specialists tend to be quite long — months. And no specialist that I’ve seen in Atlanta has ever stuck to their schedule. The best thing is to not ever get sick, I think.

My solution? Fix this stupid system of doctor’s appointments. Doctors see patients when advertised or discount the fee. Any other ideas?