Tikkabik

So today was our fourth and hopefully final meeting with the orthopedicist who's been treating James since his arm was broken in August. James got a clean bill of health, which I'm very happy about. But of the four times we've visited this particular doctor's office, they twice made us wait hours to be seen. Literally, hours after our scheduled time. This, with a restless and physically active four year old who, until last week, was up to his shoulder in a cast.

So when Bonnie arrived today to be told that James would have to wait twenty minutes to be seen, she wasn't willing to wait, especially in light of our previous experiences. She asked to talk with the office manager, who prompted her to come right in to an exam room. Bonnie still wasn't seen right away, but at least she didn't have to wait another two hours.

As it turns out, a couple of parents of kids in Bob's class arrived at the waiting room as Bonnie was leaving -- they were having their own son's cast removed. And they ended up waiting a couple of hours to see a doctor.

The lesson here, of course, is the old squeaky wheel adage, but it touches upon something else as well -- I've often in the course of the past few years been lectured on the importance of arriving on time and in many cases, on the importance of arriving early for a doctor's appointment, only to be made to wait way past the scheduled time. This appears to be a fairly regular problem with many doctor's offices, and while it's easy to blame managed health care for overburdening doctors, it's also clear that many of them are just really poorly managed themselves. Bonnie and I have had so many arguments with surly and disorganized billing offices for doctors in the past few years, ever since we joined a PPO, that I know it's not coincidence.

For whatever reason, doctors are hiring really lousy help to run their practices for them.