A Doctors's Visit is Half a Day

Remember when we were told how wonderful the future would be? We would live in a time when no one worked more than 30 hours a week. In this prosperous society people working part time so that their employers would not be responsible for health benefits, vacations, sick days and the like would not be a problem.

In this best of all possible worlds I would have a paper free office. Everything would be computerized. The computer would actually work. Viruses, worms, and crashes were not prophesied.

And best of all, I would have leisure time to pursue all my interests; but one thing was left out: a mandatory new hobby that consumes much of my leisure time. That hobby is personal medical care.

There are the medical specialists: the foot doctor, the joint doctor, the plumbing doctors (GI, Kidney, Urology), the heart doctor, the lung doctor, the nose doctor, the eye doctor, and perhaps the most important of all, the primary care doctor, whose job it is to to keep track of what is happening with the other doctors. This list does not include the various technicians and support persons such as audiologists, nor does it include the dentist, or dentists. Over all there must be at least 15 such caregivers.

Each doctor must be visited. A doctor's visit, my friends, takes half a day. Surely not, you say! After all they only spend ten minutes with you. True, but you must consider the other factors:

Travel time - No doctor is less than 30 minutes away. Usually the travel time is closer to an hour, especially if you must be on the roads during rush hour. On average? Probably 45 minutes each way or a total of one and one half hours.

Waiting time - In the outer office, if you are lucky 30 minutes, more likely 45. Then you are taken to an inner examination room, where you take your clothes off and freeze for another 15 to thirty minutes.

Consultation time - 10 to 20 minutes. If consultation time is any longer, you have some various serious problem which will involve adding other doctors, more appointments, etc.,etc., etc.

Recovery time - Remember when you went right back to work following a doctor's appointment? Now you get back home and have to rest for 30 minutes until you are able to continue your day.

Add it all up. It is usually three hours, often four. Dancing this dance with fifteen or more health care professionals can easily take a week or two out of each month.

The cost of all this is incidental. You just use the money you had set aside for all those leisure activities for which you don't have time because you are visiting doctors.