bad day at the dentist
so lately I have been finding the community aspects on Facebook more enticing to my online time than LJ, but I realised that it's a much faster, generally more superficial thing and I want to keep writing stuff here too.
yesterday I had a dentist appointment. I had asked them to schedule me late in the date, and wrote down my appointment as 3pm, but they called me the day before and said it was at 1pm. Work has been pretty tight lately and ducking out at 1 would mean I'd definitely have to come back, and couldn't let the appointment drag out too long.
So I got to the office just at 1pm, because I couldn't leave work way early to get there. I've switched insurance and it took them about 20 minutes to get that straight. One of the receptionists was being very rude and demanding of information I didn't have on me, even while the other one was on the phone with the insurance company getting that information from them. Meanwhile, I noticed that my dentist was spending the entire time hanging out near the printer, trying to get something to come out of it.
After they got my insurance figured out, I sat there for another 20-25 minutes, seeing the dental assistant and the dentist going back and forth from the reception area, while I heard the other dentist who works in the office working on a patient in one of the back areas. When I finally was asked to come back and sit in the chair, it was about 1:45pm. On the way back, I noticed my dentist on the floor in a side room taping up some boxes and putting shipping labels on them. After getting my little bib tied on, I sat there for another 10+ minutes, until finally the dentist came in just before 2pm.
I'm normally a very understanding person of the delays involved in doctor visits, because you never know what the previous patient is going to need, exactly, and things can run long. On the other hand, I really didn't feel good having been made to wait while the dentist was performing duties that her office staff should have been doing, or that could have been done later. I would even have understood if they had called me and said, "we've had an emergency and can't see you today at 1pm, can you come later or next week?"
I wasn't showing any outside signs of anger, but at that point, I decided I was too upset by the process to be able to properly relax while she was sticking sharp objects in my mouth. I told her that I wasn't feeling good about the visit, and that I needed to be back at work soon and didn't want to be all shot up with novocaine just so she could maybe get one filling done in the short time remaining. To her credit, she looked me in the eye and said, "You're right, I'm sorry. I got focused on doing something and wasn't thinking clearly about you waiting." (it was slightly different from that because she has a heavy Vietnamese accent, but that was what she was trying to say at least). She offered to give me a Saturday appointment in a few weeks, so I could come back without taking off work.
I really like my dentist, and even though I was annoyed yesterday, I actually respect her even more for admitting right away that she had made a mistake. I do think at least one of her office staff is completely incompetent, though, or else she wouldn't have been doing that work herself in the first place.
yesterday I had a dentist appointment. I had asked them to schedule me late in the date, and wrote down my appointment as 3pm, but they called me the day before and said it was at 1pm. Work has been pretty tight lately and ducking out at 1 would mean I'd definitely have to come back, and couldn't let the appointment drag out too long.
So I got to the office just at 1pm, because I couldn't leave work way early to get there. I've switched insurance and it took them about 20 minutes to get that straight. One of the receptionists was being very rude and demanding of information I didn't have on me, even while the other one was on the phone with the insurance company getting that information from them. Meanwhile, I noticed that my dentist was spending the entire time hanging out near the printer, trying to get something to come out of it.
After they got my insurance figured out, I sat there for another 20-25 minutes, seeing the dental assistant and the dentist going back and forth from the reception area, while I heard the other dentist who works in the office working on a patient in one of the back areas. When I finally was asked to come back and sit in the chair, it was about 1:45pm. On the way back, I noticed my dentist on the floor in a side room taping up some boxes and putting shipping labels on them. After getting my little bib tied on, I sat there for another 10+ minutes, until finally the dentist came in just before 2pm.
I'm normally a very understanding person of the delays involved in doctor visits, because you never know what the previous patient is going to need, exactly, and things can run long. On the other hand, I really didn't feel good having been made to wait while the dentist was performing duties that her office staff should have been doing, or that could have been done later. I would even have understood if they had called me and said, "we've had an emergency and can't see you today at 1pm, can you come later or next week?"
I wasn't showing any outside signs of anger, but at that point, I decided I was too upset by the process to be able to properly relax while she was sticking sharp objects in my mouth. I told her that I wasn't feeling good about the visit, and that I needed to be back at work soon and didn't want to be all shot up with novocaine just so she could maybe get one filling done in the short time remaining. To her credit, she looked me in the eye and said, "You're right, I'm sorry. I got focused on doing something and wasn't thinking clearly about you waiting." (it was slightly different from that because she has a heavy Vietnamese accent, but that was what she was trying to say at least). She offered to give me a Saturday appointment in a few weeks, so I could come back without taking off work.
I really like my dentist, and even though I was annoyed yesterday, I actually respect her even more for admitting right away that she had made a mistake. I do think at least one of her office staff is completely incompetent, though, or else she wouldn't have been doing that work herself in the first place.