Single doctor practices and wait times

[ringstrue]

Hmm I'd ask about that. He might not deliver everyone pg patient he has.

[mae141]

Yes, I realized that when I had a rushed appointment once that I never had a cancelled appointment. I thought it was pretty weird. My doctor joked that the babies she delivers only seem to come at night.

[Stingyshark]

I went to a practice w/ multiple Drs but I always saw the Dr. I was scheduled to see, never had any appts cancelled.. but quite a few times I sat for-ev-er and waited.

I've tried to figure out how this works as well. My only thought is that they keep the patient load for that Dr really light on weeks that he is on call at the hospital to prevent having to cancel appointments/long wait times and you're just really lucky =)

He could also have someone that delivers for him. I don't know if that is a thing, but I know for internal medicine some practices hire doctors just to round on patients at the hospitals (at least they do at the hospitals we work with).

[papie]

Our hospital always has the on-call doctor deliver the babies, never your own doctor. My OB is in a practice with multiple others, but the hospital has many more in rotation that just my OB's practice, so it wouldn't matter if my doctor was in a single practice.

[katiek]

I've never had an appointment cancelled, but I've waited 2-3 hours a few times. It's annoying, but I'm happy to know that my doctor will be there no matter when the baby comes. At my last appointment, she got a call that someone needed her at the very end of my appointment, so sometimes the timing works well for me.

[D2M]

I used to go to a solo practitioner OBGYN (before pregnancy or even TTC). I had two appointments cancelled for the doctor to deliver babies and I had crazy long waits in the office. I now go to a practice with several doctors and rotate between them. I am happier there for a variety of reasons.

[melsamoony]

My practice has 2 doctors and one is always on call.

If you deliver during the week you will be delivered by one of the doctors from the office. If you deliver on the weekend call is alternated through a larger group of 7 physicians (including the 2 from my office) so one of them will deliver the baby.

They were very upfront with me when I started with the practice and said that there may be times when my appt has to be rescheduled if my doctor is with someone who is in labor. Fortunately that has not yet happened and I have been able to get in for an emergent same day appt.

[winemaker06]

Feb 20, 2014 11:00:01 GMT -5 Stingyshark said:

I've tried to figure out how this works as well. My only thought is that they keep the patient load for that Dr really light on weeks that he is on call at the hospital to prevent having to cancel appointments/long wait times and you're just really lucky =)

This is how my practice works, but on call is a daily thing. There are 9 doctors in the practice and there is 1 or more at the hospital every day, all day.
For instance, my doctor is on call on Tuesdays and never takes Tuesday appointments because she is at the hospital either delivering babies or checking in on postpartum patients. I don't know what the hours are supposed to be though. I delivered DS at 3am and the OB stayed the whole time (I wondered if a change of shift would mean they would switch but nope!)

Obviously this doesn't help with a single doctor practice though. There's usually a whole group of on call doctors for deliveries.

[changedname]

Mine is a single doctor practice. Sometimes I go and only have to wait 15-20mins but a few times I have waited well over 1 hour. A few weeks ago I was waiting about 1.5 hours and he apologized when he saw me and said" I have 3 labouring women so I have to keep running back and forth to the hospital (its across the street). When It's your turn, i'll do the same for you".

It doesn't bother me to wait knowing he is trying his best to be there for patients.

I did ask him what the chances are of him being at my delivery and he said 70%. I also remember when I had my AS scan he said if anything was wrong they would call him and he would rush over.

[Deleted]

My last OB was a single doctor atthe time (he now has two other OBs in the practice) and the only delay I ever had was a 1.5 hour delay for an appointment when he was delivering. The morning I had my DD via emergency C section, he had another emergency section immediately after. Busy guy!

[gilly]

I go to a family practice doc that also does OBGYN, barring emergencies he delivers all of his own babies. I delivered at 10 am so I'm sure he canceled on someone that day. I've had some appointments run late, and one appointment rescheduled an hour out due to him being called in to deliver a baby. I don't mind the wait, I know he came to the hospital 8-9 times in the 4 days we were in the hospital. We gave him a bottle of wine to share with his wife!