Going to the dentist is not a very pleasant experience and a lot of people have their personal horror stories behind why they try to avoid it. But what’s even more annoying is if you’ve worked up the courage to go but your appointment keeps getting rescheduled. In this busy day and age, ain’t nobody got time for that!

This woman shared the irritating experience she had with dental staff as they kept changing her appointments over and over, and how she finally got a chance to do something about it.

More info: Reddit

Annoyed woman realizes dental staff are rescheduling her appointments because they want to leave work early, finds a way to annoy them instead

Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko (not the actual photo)

The poster shared that the staff at her dental clinic kept changing her after-work appointments without giving a reason, she figured it was because they wanted to go home earlier

Image credits: Anna Shvets (not the actual photo)

Once, they canceled her appointment an hour earlier stating that the computers were down, she did not give up and after a lot of back and forth fixed a new appointment after their work hours

Image credits: FlipsyChic

Unfortunately, she wasn’t optimistic that they would keep her appointment the next week and felt they might cancel again

The poster mentioned that she kept scheduling dentist appointments after her work hours because morning times were not possible for her. Because the visits were scheduled around 5pm, she noticed that the staff kept canceling the appointments without giving a reason. Since it happened repeatedly, she figured it was because they probably wanted to go home earlier.

One day, they called her an hour before the appointment, stating that their computers were down and that she would not be able to get treatment. After some back and forth, they finally fixed a new date and time for her to come to the clinic. When she questioned them about how they could schedule the appointment with their technology not working, they said that they wrote it down, which seemed fishy to the woman.

Research on no-shows and cancelations in healthcare practices have found that when patients have to wait very long for their appointment, it can lead to feelings of anxiety. If their wait time increases, they are also likelier to not show up or cancel on the provider. This can lead to a higher rate of patient attrition. What businesses need to note is, rescheduling patients can reduce the financial performance of the practice.

Many people were asking about the dental practice so the Original Poster (OP) gave a bit more background in the comments. She stated: “my appointment is for a cleaning with a hygienist, and my state does not require that the dentist be in the office at all, and sometimes he’s not. So I know this is not about the dentist wanting to leave early. I believe the hygienists get paid per patient and have always seemed pretty eager to book me with them again, so I don’t think it’s about the hygienist wanting to split early either.”

“I fully believe that the receptionists saw that there were other cancelations and that my appointment was going to be the one preventing them from going home early and came up with an excuse. They were already trying to move my appointment as of last week, so it’s more than a suspicious coincidence that the computers conveniently went down,” she added. Tebra’s research on appointment rescheduling states that it’s very important for providers to give a reasonable excuse for canceling the patient’s appointment along with an apology.

Image credits: Cedric Fauntleroy (not the actual photo)

What the sneaky staff might not realize is that their repeated rescheduling can have a huge impact on the business. A survey by Tebra found that over one-third of patients were ready to switch to a new provider if their current provider canceled twice. It’s not just about the wait time but also the reliability of the healthcare service that’s important to patients. Tebra states that “not only can a lack of timely appointment availability reduce patient show rate, but practices also say it’s a top reason why patients leave their practice.”

The poster told netizens that this wasn’t the first time she had experienced an issue like this. She said: “I used to have an OB/GYN who rescheduled or canceled every single appointment. I had a very inflexible job at the time, so every time I asked for time off to go to an appointment was stressful. After having the same appointment rescheduled 3-4 times, I decided to get another doctor.”

Studies on the effect of rescheduling on people’s behavior suggest that patients should be the ones to fix new appointment times or days. If practices really cannot follow through with a particular engagement, they should provide flexible options to the patient. This can reduce the overall no-show and cancelation rate and protect company expenses.

A commenter who mentioned that they are a dentist said that if the practice is a small business owned by an independent doctor then it’s possible the provider has no idea that their staff is pulling such tricks. The netizen told OP to casually mention the crazy amount of rescheduling to the doctor the next time they meet, otherwise they would never get to know what’s going on.

Bored Panda reached out to the commenter to get a dentist’s perspective on the situation. Dr. V (who wished to remain anonymous) mentioned that “there is no medical malpractice associated with (most) reschedules of appointments. I’d say it’s more of an inconvenience than anything for patients. That being said, I don’t think it’s always easy. I think it takes a group of people to be on board with it. Many times, reschedules are done to avoid payment of payroll on low production patients. Sometimes, it’s because of laziness with the staff.”

“My most common cause of it happens when doctors are paid ‘per diem’ rather than hourly or via percentage of production. A doctor who makes 700 dollars for showing up to work regardless of the number of patients seen is much more likely to want to end their day early and minimize the work they actually do. Likewise, percent production based doctors are incentivized to stay late hours as more work = more money,” they also added.

The woman’s frustration is completely understandable especially after making such an effort to fix so many time slots. Nobody should have to jump through so many hoops just to get an appointment. Netizens were annoyed on behalf of the woman and told her to reverse the staff’s trick and charge them for canceling instead. What would you have done if you were in her position? 

People in the comments encouraged the poster to find a new dental clinic and were sure that her newly scheduled appointment would be canceled as well

Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk (not the actual photo)

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