Has this been anyone else’s experience?
The appointment never starts at the actual appointment time. It usually starts more than an hour later. Why is that? I’ve been to a few different places throughout Tokyo over the years and have noticed this. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or what.
Everything and everyone on Japan is always on time, except for appointments? Should I just start showing up an hour late?
(As I started drafting this post, the doctor called my name lol…)
17 comments
Cause everyone wants to be called on time, but after called everyone wants the doctor to take their time.
Never an issue for me. It depends on the location, services offered, how many patients etc. I’ve only ever had a guaranteed wait of 20-30 mins extra at my ENT and that’s because he’s really popular and always booked out everyday so the appointments go over.
I’m literally waiting for my appointment that was supposed to start an hour ago right now lol
Doctors and nurses like to sit around and chat and twiddle their thumbs while making patients wait
At least for larger hospitals (which I have the pleasure to frequent, ugh) also give the appointments not as personal times but rather the same time block for X amount of people. Then it depends who arrives the earliest… if everyone’s appointment ends up taking a bit longer than expected you’ll be even more delayed.
For example, I always have appointment for 9:00 and if I go in 8:30 and get the first queue number for that time block I’m usually seen 9:00 sharp. Any later and it might be 9:30 as there’s a bunch of people who booked for “9:00”.
This is also the reason I book the earliest possible time whenever I can. I’ve had a few horrid visits to a general hospital where I waited 2-4 hours for my appointment for the afternoon as the delay just got longer and longer as the day went on.
I have two clinics (ENT and dermatology) that have an excellent online booking system that allow me to check my number in real time and arrive just before it’s going to be my turn. At other places I had to wait for hours… it’s worth shopping around a little before settling for life!
I’ve only been to clinics like 3-4 times before but it was always pretty quick for me. Although I gotta say that I live in the absolute inaka so it’s not like there’s a lot of people in the town.
I think this is true of medicine in general. In Japan at least the doctor apologizes. This is why i whats try to snag one of the first appointments of the day.
The best thing to do is always book as early as possible, then arrive at the hospital or clinic even earlier than that
in my experience large hospitals are horrible for waiting and small clinics are fast depending on the time … it takes me up to 3 hours and a half to have my blood checked.. see the doctor.. pay and get my prescription filled .. every month .. last week I didn’t get my blood checked and still waited an hour and half to see my doctor and get s prescription.. not including the time to pay and get my prescription filled .. ( this was just beyond frustrating).
That night a visited s similar type doctor ( GI) just to check and see what the doctor was like, and it took 10 minutes…
It depends a lot on where you go.
Because there are 3 people booked for 10:30 AM and only one doctor. That’s how my gynecologist is.
Perhaps because it’s common to have to go 4 or 5 times for a procedure that would be done in 1 day in other countries. Yes that’s happened me a few times.
It’s the same everywhere. They schedule multiple patients at once and/or some unscheduled/urgent appointments get squeezed in. Showing up later will likely still result in the same wait time, since they’ll generally treat you in order.
Making an early morning appointment, or the first appointment after lunch break, and showing up 30 mins earlier works better at certain clinics.
I find that for my local clinic, time of day matters. At first I thought they were always busy because I kept trying to get there when they opened. Then I discovered that if you try to see the doctor at 11 am there is basically no waiting. Likewise, day of week matters. Monday morning and Friday afternoons are long no matter what.
I have a bunch of health issues and have been to so many clinics over the years here and still go regularly, but I actually find all of them to be pretty much on time every single time (maybe 10-15 min late is the longest I’ve waited with an appointment?)
Once the appointment is over however, you have to wait to be called for payment and getting the meds and that usually takes forever! I’m still not sure what could take so long honestly but that’s my experience so far. Also I’m in the less busy part of Yokohama and maybe that’s why the wait time for the actual appointment isn’t that long compared to Tokyo.
The clinic I go to every week is like this. I can tell at a glance how long the wait will be when I walk in based on how crowded the waiting room is, so I usually just immediately tell them I’ll go somewhere else first & they should just call me when they’re ready.
Honestly they should have just let me book an appointment that’s 1 hr later every time but no
One time the wait was 2 hrs so I went shopping & still had time to spare
Depends on the place. Some places are horrible managing time and people. Just avoid those if you can.