Five reasons the doctor may be running late for your appointment

With the volume of patients seen at our practice on a daily basis, there is no room for operational inefficiencies. Our providers and staff try their best to keep the clinic running smoothly and keep wait times to a minimum while also providing the highest level of patient care. After almost 50 years, we’ve had a lot of practice!

Most patients have a minimal wait time and some may even be seen ahead of schedule, but on rare occasions, the wait can be longer than expected. When it happens, there is usually a pretty good reason.

Emergencies

Our providers take turns being “on-call” for the emergency room at two area hospitals. They are occasionally called away to attend to an urgent or emergent case at the hospital that requires immediate attention. For this reason, their schedule may be disrupted.

Complex cases

The patient ahead of you may require an unexpectedly longer appointment than normal due to the complexity of their case. The provider may need additional time to make an accurate diagnosis and discuss a treatment plan with the patient.

Urgent appointments

Urgent, same-day appointments are to be expected, and some flexibility is built into our busy clinic schedule to accommodate them. However, the unpredictability of these types of appointments may, on occasion, lead to delays due to the higher volume of patients.

Medical records

The doctor may need extra time to obtain and review patient medical records, especially if the patient had imaging or a work-up done elsewhere. Or there may have been recent changes or updates to the medical records that the provider was unaware of.

Unforeseen personal matters

Personal emergencies, traffic, or other unforeseen matters may also cause the doctor to run late. Our providers travel between two offices and three OR facilities to provide care for our patients.