Wednesday, May 27, 2009

He has an Appointment in..... the Twilight Zone

A guy comes in today, signs in, and sits down in the waiting room. Mary, my secretary, checks the sheet and comes back to me. He doesn't have an appointment today. How do I want her to handle this?

So she starts talking to him. He insists he has an appointment today, and to prove it he pulls out an appointment card. On a crumpled card, in Mary's handwriting, it says "Next appointment: May 27, 2008"

So Mary checks the schedule. Sure enough, he had an appointment on that day. Which, of course, he no-showed. And hasn't been here since.

So we tell him he's a year late for his appointment (which is a record for my practice), and offer to reschedule him (we're swamped today).

So what does he do? He gets pissed off (in front of my full waiting room) that we won't see him today.

15 comments:

Rx Intern said...

Oh what patients will tell you. Given, your record of a whole year trumps mine.

I had a patient who claimed to take lisinopril daily for the last couple months. I thought ok, makes sense, getting to the older side of life. Check with the pharmacy, nope, it's been on hold for 6 months without a fill. Call her PCP's office, yep, same strength, sig, and physician's name on file at Walgreens.

Sigh...people can never get things straight, can they?

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Hell no. That would make our lives too easy. They wouldn't want THAT!!!

ShrinkingDoc said...

I hope you rescheduled him--sounds like he definitely needs a neurologist! Or a psychiatrist. Do I detect a theme here?

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Of course I did. I would have seen him today, but was just too busy.

Jaime @ Fast Times said...

I would have suggested that he see an eye doctor, or go back to first grade. But that's just me!

ShrinkingDoc said...

I was kidding--figured you would, though I'd have hoped he'd be too p-o'd and go elsewhere.

I'm sorry but if I was stupid enough to show up a YEAR late for an appointment, I would just reschedule as quietly as possible and slink out of the waiting room. It's his damn mistake!

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Amen. Instead he acts like it's my fault.

And I don't even charge for no-shows. So much for trying to be nice.

Julie said...

Well I've been a day late but he has me beaten. And I was embarrassed, not ticked. Well, maybe at myself. Love your posts.

ERP said...

What was his complaint or was it a routine visit?

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Routine visit... a bit overdue.

Lipstick said...

This is hilarious....precisely one year late.

A few weeks ago a lady brought in some cough syrup for a refill. She still had half a bottle left...from 2002.

Uro*MA said...

I had a man one time make a huge scene about having an appt...(no idea who this pt is and why he was there) and so we are looking in the system can't find anything, so we get the info and ask for his appt card, it was for the dr down the hall, this man still wanted us to bring this dr to OUR office so he could be seen.... Um how bout no? omg.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

URO*MA, that is wierd, and ridiculous, like something that would happen here.

Unfortunately, my practice has no monopoly on fruitcake.

Anonymous said...

I work in a Nuclear Med dept. We had a guy just a few months ago pull this same stunt. Shows up a year late and get ticked off that we wanted to reschedule him!
Course my boss fears any kind of patient dissatisfaction and made us fit him into our already jam-packed schedule. Talk about a couple of fruitcakes!

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Anon- maybe you should suggest your boss see a neurosurgeon to get a spinal cord implanted.

 
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