Goodman School of Business professors Michael Armstrong (Operations Research), Kenneth Klassen and Reena Yoogalingam (both Operations Management), wrote a piece recently published in the Daily Mail about the reason for the wait when visiting a doctor’s office.

Armstrong, Klassen and Yoogalingam write:

Patients often wait weeks or months for medical appointments, typically up to 10 weeks to see specialists. 

When they finally arrive at physicians’ offices, patients often face further waits. They may spend substantial periods in the waiting room, despite having specific appointment times.

This in-office waiting occurs for many reasons. Perhaps those patients arrived early. Perhaps earlier patients put the physicians behind schedule, or urgent calls interrupted them.

But sometimes clinics purposely schedule appointments before physicians expect to be ready. They do this to ensure physicians don’t run out of work. 

So your appointment time might be the moment your physician really expects to start seeing you. Or it might merely be when they want you to begin standing by in the waiting room.

Continue reading the full article here.