Gah!

[lillibet]

This morning I hauled myself out of bed early, foregoing morning snuggles, in order to make it through late rush hour traffic--cleverly veering out of the stopped lane of traffic waiting to get on Rte 128 South in order to take a scenic route down Bedford Road to Trapelo Road and onto 128 there, where traffic was actually moving, whether that was due to time or distance is unknown, but it was certainly more pleasant than sitting bumper-to-bumper and made me feel clever for knowing a workaround--in order to make it on time to the dermatology check-up that they had scheduled for me on my last visit, only to be told that the appointment was never entered in their computer, despite having been written down on a little card that was handed to me and subsequently entered in my computer.

They were apologetic, although not overly so, and did offer that I could sit and wait for a couple of hours and see if they could squeeze me in, or re-schedule for Friday morning, which I did, my affection for the doctor outweighing my strong desire to say "Nevermind, there are other dermatologists," and storm out.

And yes, I should have called to confirm. Lesson learned.

I think the thing that ticks me off is that if the situation were reversed--if the appointment were in their computer and not mine, they would charge me $125 for a missed appointment, even though they would probably fill in the time with one of the poor souls sitting in their waiting room, hoping to be squeezed in.

Where's my inconvenience fee?

Comments

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Where's my inconvenience fee?

You know, I would ask the doctor that on Friday. It would be interesting to see what he says to that. (And dude, $125? Really? That's outrageous.)

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

That's what it said in the paperwork I signed as a new patient. My experience with those fees (most offices have them these days) is that doctors rarely actually charge them--they use the threat to keep you from missing appointments and then use the act of waiving them to make you feel good about them. But that's the stated policy.

[minkrose]

In my experience working for a dermatologist, we would have used it to bill the guy who scheduled FIFTEEN APPOINTMENTS in one year and did not show up for ANY of them, even though we confirmed the appointments every time, usually to him directly and not VM.

He did show up ONCE. He was a really irresponsible person with a lot of STD issues which he wasn't taking care of. He would always sound really desperate on the phone but then he wouldn't show up. Anyway, the whole situation used up a lot of staff time (trying to make sure he showed up, getting his new info, rescheduling him more than once a month, etc), and really warranted charging him for the missed appointments. Unfortunately, we didn't have such a policy in place but we seriously considered creating one because of him.

But yeah. There are a lot of hoops that are unnecessary.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Sure--I don't really mind that the policy is in place, it just irks me that it's unbalanced.

That guy sounds VERY annoying!