Patient’s 9am ortho appointment ran nearly an hour late. Then the doctor spent just three minutes with them: ‘Gotta love American healthcare’

A Reddit user said they showed up early for a 9 a.m. specialist orthopedic visit for a shoulder problem and were still sitting in the exam room at 9:55 a.m. The original poster wrote that the office required them to arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled time and that no one explained the delay.

In an update, the poster said the doctor walked in shortly after 10 a.m. They wrote that staff still did not acknowledge how late the visit had run. They said they were more bothered that their concerns “were pretty much brushed off again during the whole 3ish minutes he spent with me.”

The poster said they go to a lot of doctor visits and know clinic workers are busy. They wrote that they were not mad at the staff and would never be rude. They still called the long wait with no update “a bit infuriating.” They added, “Gotta love American healthcare.”

Physician writer describes paperwork and payment rules behind delayed visits

The original poster shared a photo of the exam room while they waited. The picture showed an exam table covered in paper, a metal step stool, a small white desk, a red bin and a stainless trash can, and a sink counter with a computer and keyboard.

Ilana Yurkiewicz, an internal medicine physician and oncologist, said in Time that patients often cannot reach doctors quickly even as physicians work longer days. She wrote that she once had to tell a patient she could not “hop on the phone” about new back pain and that the visit came weeks later.

Yurkiewicz wrote that 1,300 patients call her their primary doctor. She said that after she finishes seeing people at 5 p.m., she handles 50 to 100 messages and notifications and takes three to four hours of work home every night.

She wrote that doctors now spend two hours on computer tasks for every one hour in the room with a patient. Ordering something as simple as Tylenol, she said, can take 14 to 62 clicks, and a 10-hour emergency room shift can involve about 4,000 clicks.

Yurkiewicz wrote that most U.S. health organizations still use fee-for-service payment, which mainly pays for the office visit itself. She said messages, test follow-up, chart review, and talks with other doctors generally do not count as paid work. She wrote that clinics then pack schedules into 15-minute slots and that a typical primary care panel can grow past 2,000 patients.

She wrote that the average wait to see a new doctor is 26 days and has been getting longer. She also wrote that primary care doctors are asked to fit 26.7 hours of work into one day and that nearly half of doctors report burnout, with paperwork listed as the top cause.

Other Reddit users said they had faced similar delays. One person said a gynecologist visit after work left them in a paper gown for more than an hour until the lights went off and they had to yell that they were still in the room. Another said their obstetrician ran nearly an hour and a half late, so they checked with the front desk, went to Costco, and came back.

Commenters offered wry advice about sitting alone in an exam room. One wrote, “Start opening cabinets. They will be right in when you are mid opening.” Another wrote, “Go for the box of gloves.” A third wrote, “Time to start making glove balloon animals.” Such long waits for minimal consultation are a common complaint in healthcare, as when a woman called to cancel her 1200 imaging appointment and the hospital staff asked her to ditch insurance. 

One commenter said a parent once handed a child a box of gloves during a long pediatric wait and told them they were going to throw a surprise party. The commenter wrote that the doctor walked in as they asked for another box and later said the visit would have to be rescheduled. Such frustrations are part of a broader debate on healthcare systems, as a video shows an American woman’s hospital visit in China costing just $12. 

Another commenter wrote, “Honestly even if your mom was a b–ch, it’s also incredibly unprofessional to have somebody waiting 60mins past their appointment time without an explanation.” A separate commenter said, “Your mom may be rude, but waiting almost an hour would cause anyone to become a b–ch.”