The other day, I took off work early to bring my kids to get their camp physicals.
We sat in the doctor’s outer office for 57 minutes, trying not to breathe the air of the children next to us, who were coughing like tubercular coal miners.
Then, a nurse took the rugrats and did the whole thing, take off your shoes, get on the scale, stick this thermometer in your ear.
After all that, we finally got into the Inner Sanctum, where the kids got little cups to pee in and got their fingers stabbed to have blood drawn. They thought the making pee-pee in the cup thing was kind of fun, but they were not in favor of the finger stabbing, which they indicated by screaming until they were hoarse.
Then, we waited for another 56 minutes in the tiny examining room, which quickly became like a cell in
the Bastille.
Every 30 seconds, the kids demanded to know whether they had to get shots.
Meanwhile, I tried to keep them from (a) taking all the tongue depressors and making a castle out of them and (b) twirling on the doctor’s stool until it comes apart and they fall down (c) pulling the blood pressure monitor out of the wall (d) removing all the paper gowns from the drawer and making costumes out of them (e) grabbing a bunch of rubber gloves and blowing them up like balloons and (f) yanking the stirrups out of the examining table so hard they break and (g) fighting over whose turn it was to lie down.
I tried to get them interested in reading the colorful anatomically correct posters about pelvic disease and uterine cancer, but they weren’t having any of it.
Finally, another nurse came in and gave them an eye test. That entertained them for about three minutes.
Just when I was about to lose my mind, the doctor finally came in and began reading the file. “Your kids aren’t due for an annual physical until July,” she announced. I explained how they needed the physical for camp, and this year I was actually doing it early and not waiting until the last minute.
“You don’t understand,” the doctor said. “The insurance won’t pay for it. So I can’t do it. You have to come back in July.”
I felt like stabbing her with a tongue depressor, but the kids had already used them all to build Windsor Castle.
Would you like to be featured here and on 
Get your doctor to check US out when he/she needs to replenish all those kids’ “toys”!
Great blog - thanks for the lunchtime laugh
That sucks! The person making your appointment should have checked at the time. When I make appointments for yearly things (like paps & physicals) they always check to see when my last one was. Same thing at the dentist.
But I know what you mean about the waiting game. I took my 2 year-old to the doctor on Friday. He kept opening the door to the examining room & saying “all done” and trying to leave. He also helped himself to a drawer full of pens & began coloring everything. Aaaagggghhhh!
Haha. Wow! What a day you had!
Take your kids on over to http://www.angietheant.com
That should entertain them for awhile.
Paige @ http://www.angietheant.com
I agree with the other commenter. The problem here is the person in the office who scheduled your doctor’s visit. She should have checked before making the appt.
I tried to schedule an “early” pre-birthday medical exam for my daughter one year. My pediatrician’s office wouldn’t schedule it before her birthday, for the same reason your doctor gave you.
Isn’t it awful about waiting for so long on appointments? Most doctor offices have no respect for people’s time.
I have tried to refill perscriptions a week or so early so I don’t run out and have had the same response. Um, what if I’m going on a trip and won’t be around when the last pill is taken? I get it, insurance is a necessary (evil) aspect of life, but it chafes me to be controlled by an insurance company.
Did you ever hear about the case where a lawyer billed his doctor because he made him wait an hour and a half in the waiting room. He billed him his hourly rate of $400. And included a note saying that his time was valuable and they had a contractual agreement to have a meeting/appointment at a certain time blah, blah, blah…….I thought this was brillant. The doctor paid it. And was never late again. This is a true story. So everytime a doc makes me wait- I throw a hissy. After all we are the CUSTOMERS right??? What a bummer they wasted your time today….
Marla, it seems that people have been on a mission to torture you lately. From the appraiser to the doctor’s office, they just don’t want to make it easy for you, do they?
Well, I’m putting some positive “mom vibes” out there for you.
It has actually occurred to me to bill my doctor for keeping me waiting. I have also thrown a hissy fit but if you’ve never done it, the medical office staff look at you like you have mental problems if you suggest to them you shouldn’t have to sit there picking your nose for an hour because the doctor is overbooked.
Maybe I’m just grumbling more than usual. Have you seen that slogan, “What if there’s no PMS and this is my real personality”?
That’s hilarious, Marla. Thanks for the laugh. When my son was a baby (a long time ago) we had a fabulous pediatrician. Dr. Mackoff never made us wait, and I asked the staff once how he managed that. He left 15 minutes of every hour free for emergencies — because we know little kids have emergencies. Very wise. But maybe he wouldn’t be able to stay in business that way now. He was the kind of pediatrician that kids went back to visit when they were home from college.
Check out this essay I wrote about the sanity-testing ordeal it was just taking my kids to the doctor:
Germ Warfare
They don’t call it a waiting room for nothing. When I walk into my pediatrician’s office — sick kids in tow — I shiver, knowing the endurance test that awaits.
The room, lined on all sides by irritable-looking adults and hordes of (literally) snot-nosed children, is deceptively bright and cheery; its walls are papered with smiling clowns holding balloons. I look around for a seat, then settle for a speck of wall next to the magazines.
We amuse ourselves for the first five minutes by staring at everyone else in the room. There are the usual suspects: young mothers with newborns clutched close; curious, germ-laden toddlers strolling about; even a few slouching teenagers, scowling to hide their embarrassment.
There are no toys or children’s books here to spread infection, just a rack of magazines for parents and a few more austere publications like Time, Newsweek, even a stray copy of Scientific American. I stare at it, thinking this doctor must have a strange sense of humor.
The room’s one concession to the amusement of children is directly across from me — a big-screen TV. It plays one animated movie over and over. The movie is changed approximately every six months. Since my children cultivate ear and sinus infections faster than my yard sprouts weeds, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing it at least 5,000 times. But it does seem to pacify some of the children, including my own, for the first hour.
Then a very large woman, unable to find a seat, chooses to stand directly in front of the screen. This sets off a chain reaction of caterwauls and whines, and puts the screen-blocker in real danger from a group of adults who couldn’t be more on edge if they were undergoing a mass fingernail extraction.
My son says loudly, “Mommy, I can’t see!” And then he proceeds to say it again and again and AGAIN. Finally — most likely via divine intervention — the obstructionist finds a seat. I breathe a sigh of relief and try to count the number of people still ahead of me. I get to 25 and am too discouraged to continue. I glare at the clowns on the walls. Their grins have now turned to hideous, malevolent leers.
During the second hour, we are approached by “The Infector.” There’s one in every pediatrician’s waiting room — an outgoing, pint-sized germ carrier with a big loopy grin encircled by caked-on mucus. She comes closer, spewing viral droplets all over my kids and then reaching out with the most terrorizing weapon of all: a well-lubricated finger.
“Hi!” says this biological time bomb. “What’s your name?” Mata Hari could not have been more deviously charming.
I pull my children close and wonder how I can discreetly repel the threat. A surreptitious trip? A quick jab in the stomach? But a cold shoulder seems to suffice.
The germ warrior moves on to the next victim. I take heart, realizing I’m now fourth in line. After only 30 more minutes, the door to the inner sanctum opens and we are finally summoned. I rise, weak-kneed and convinced I can hear the sound of a trumpet and angels singing. We are ushered into another waiting room, this one with the doctor’s name in a framed picture, each letter formed by those *!&#?$%@*! clowns.
Once inside, my offspring promptly start to fight – punching, kicking and biting – over positioning on the examination table. I console myself with the thought that any serious injuries they inflict on each other will receive medical attention within five hours.
Children’s screams echo up and down the hall. I splash water on my face at the sink in the corner, then stare up into the little mirror over it, convinced I’ve developed a host of new wrinkles since I arrived. Suddenly, we hear an authoritative voice just outside. I hurriedly straighten up. My progeny stop pummeling each other and come to attention.
The knob turns, the door opens, and there he is: THE DOCTOR!
“Long time no see,” he jokes. I try to smile back, but my facial muscles, having atrophied, fail to lift my mouth.
I reel off a list of symptoms and watch as he conducts a quick exam: eyes, ears, nose, throat, lungs. “Just a cold this time,” he says briskly, writing something in the chart as I sag into a chair. “Give ‘em plenty of fluids, extra rest. They’ll be fine in a few days. See you next time.”
And with that he is gone, like an ice cube in July. “Wait –“ My voice is a weak, pitiful squeak.
The doctor, that descendant of Hippocrates bound to soothe and heal, does not hear me. Then I catch sight of THOSE CLOWNS, seemingly prancing on the walls in spiteful celebration of my plight.
“You ____ (numerous expletives deleted),” I hiss at them, forgetting my audience. The kids stare at me wide-eyed, or rather, wide-eared, primed and ready to repeat those choice expletives at the first opportunity, probably in front of my mother-in-law.
“Come on,” I sigh, collecting my brood and heading for the exit, vowing that my children will have to exhibit signs of bubonic plague before I darken the doors of this place again. But I know better.
© Jackie Papandrew, All Rights Reserved
http://www.jackiepapandrew.com
That’s funny and true. The catch-22 is with kids, if you avoid the ordeal of taking them to the doctor when you’re pretty sure it’s only a cold, then you feel guilty because what if it’s double pneumonia and the kid would have lived if only you’d gotten him to a doctor in time; or, if you actually go to the doctor and brave the ordeal, you are inevitably told it’s just a virus and go home and wait it out.
It is actually the PATIENTS responsibility to know their own insurance policies and keep track of when their physicals are due. If you lose track, ask. If you are not sure if they will pay, call your insurance. They are the real source of the answers you seek. If you call the doctor’s office they in turn have to call your insurance anyway. If a doctors office checks before hand they probably do it because they have had this situation happen more than they care to count. Everybody’s insurance policy is different even if it is with the same insurance company as your neighbors and it would be impossible for your doctors office to possibly know them all. Would you prefer they not tell you ahead of time and then let the insurance deny your claim? That means you’d be stuck with a very costly bill. It is an inconvenience but they don’t like it anymore than you do. Also, the doctor’s are aware that your time is valuable. And so does their staff. They all have families and waiting rooms that they have to wait in also. And trust me, the staff that you throw your “hissy” at REALLY wishes you didn’t have to wait. I’m sure they don’t want you in their waiting room any more than you want to wait in it. The doctor’s staff is no more at fault than the patient is. They put time aside to consult with you about the reason you gave them when you made the appointment. But more often than not, the patient will come in and ask the doctor about many other concerns and time was not set aside for this. Just two patients doing this will put the whole day behind. Or take the mother who goes to her doctors office after having made an appointment for one sick child and decides to have the doctor “just take a quick look” at her other two children who are also having these symptoms. Doctors have to follow protocol or they can be breaking the law. They have to document antime they examine a patient. Part of that means weighing the patient, taking the temperature, blood pressure, etc. Most people don’t think about this and all of this happens daily in a doctors office. The pediatrician that allowed 15 mins every hour is fortunate. Most doctors don’t have that luxury as much as they would like to.
Well if going to the doctor were not such an ordeal, then perhaps parents would not feel the need to try to squeeze more time out of every visit. Or perhaps doctors should have a more realistic time frame for visits with the understanding that people confronted with the rare opportunity to see a medical professional in the flesh might have some extra questions.