We live in very busy times.  Everyone is rushing about trying to cram more and more into their daily lives. When your patients come to your office for an appointment do you make them wait?

A friend of mine was relating a story to me the other day about a recent visit to his doctor.  He had an appointment at 10:00 a.m.  He sat in the reception area awaiting his turn to see the doctor until 11:30. He had to wonder why he’d bothered to schedule an appointment.  I told him he should charge the doctor for his time or deduct it from the bill.

I took my car in recently to have an oil leak looked at.  I was given a 9:30 a.m. appointment.  As they couldn’t look at the car right away they gave me a loaner vehicle.  The service center didn’t call me until 2:30 p.m. THE NEXT DAY to tell me that they had finally looked at my car and found out what the problem was.  Why did they give me an appointment for the day before if they knew they weren’t going to be able to look at it?

Keeping patients waiting or stacking more patients up in the reception area than can readily be seen in a timely manner is not the way to increase volume and revenue.  What it does is leave a very poor impression in the minds of the patient and reduces the likelihood that they will return or have the courtesy of calling ahead to reschedule an appointment should a real emergency arise in their lives.  Your brand becomes synonymous with slow, poor service.  Would you rate a restaurant very high if you had an 8:00 p.m. reservation and when you showed up they said they couldn’t seat you until 9:30 p.m.?  NO! So, don’t treat your patients like their time doesn’t matter.