How to avoid long waiting at prenatal appointments.
This is the type of information I enjoy sharing with
my readers. Advice that is intended to be practical and very
applicable, to help you with the little things that can make a big
difference.
When scheduling an OB/GYN office visit, it is helpful
to first have an understanding of how a women’s health medical practice
is managed on a daily basis.
In OB/GYN, there are many
unpredictable factors that can impact how efficiently a practice will
function from day to day. Unexpected events can disrupt even the most
well thought out office schedule. Miscarriages, surgical emergencies
and patients in labor are unpredictable events.
Granted there are
always coverage arrangements in place to meet practice demands, but
even with this being the case, there will always be occasions when the
medical staff will be over-extended. When this happens, it is our hope,
as providers, that patients will be understanding .
I am very
sensitive to the total amount of time which can be lost by a prenatal
patient during the course of her prenatal and postpartum care. Frequent
visits can result in a significant amount of lost time from their daily
schedules, including travel time, etc.
Providers dread running
late for patients and even worse having to reschedule a patient, as
this is not good for the relationship. Furthermore, it can often feel
like a double standard to the patient ,if the provider cannot see her.
Patients wait for doctors … why shouldn’t doctors wait for patients?
The
recommendations I am going to list below are extremely simple and
intended to help minimize some of the inconveniences and frustrations
associated with scheduling office visits:
1.) Book as many
appointments at one time as is possible/allowed so that you can get the
times that you want. The intervals between appointments will be
determined by the gestational age of your pregnancy.
2.) Schedule
to be seen at the start of a provider’s office session. This will
reduce the possibility of problems occurring that can set your provider
behind. If you are scheduling an afternoon appointment, try to get a
time immediately after lunch (at the start of the afternoon session).
Most providers, who are running behind, will tend to use their lunch
time as a buffer to catch up if their morning session runs late.
Needless to say, this might mean giving up their allotted time for
lunch but that is simply how schedules are kept on time in this setting.
3.)
Whenever possible, phone ahead to determine whether your provider is
running on time. Most practices are glad to hear from you before you
arrive so they can address a potential delay in the office schedule.
When I am behind and am asked what to do about a patient who is
inquiring , I much rather hear that the patient is on the phone and not
sitting in the waiting room. I feel I have more flexibility, perhaps I
can see the patient for the last appointment of the day or during a
canceled appointment time that might have been called in earlier that
day.
4.) Schedule your office visits (if there are choices) on
days when there are more than one provider in the office. As a result
of surgical schedules, providers being on-call or just coming off call
(at the hospital) there can be days with limited office coverage. This
is no fault of anyone, it is simply part of the logistics of
maintaining an office practice. If there is only one provider in the
office (“your provider”) it can take just one urgent problem/emergency
to disrupt a schedule for the rest of the day as there is no one else
in the office to help catch up.
I hope these suggestions are
helpful to you and also will help you have a better understanding of
why there may be a wait for routine office visits.
Douglas Penta MD
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