100

I place a high value on my time, and sympathize with the OP’s situation. However, I spoke to the Dr. in our family about this and he made a few points. 1) Doctors do not schedule their time, especially true of doctors who are not in private practice, but employed by hospital systems. The office schedulers manage that, and there are times when, as much as the Dr outlines the time frames (such as 15 minutes for repeat appointments, 30 minutes for new patients, other variants depending on the patient’s situation), the scheduler might not accommodate that, or try to squeeze in another patient or two. 2) If a Dr. is a specialist (cardiologist, for example) he/she might have to make hospital rounds or be called in for an emergency prior to beginning, or even in the middle of, the office day. Emergencies will take priority over routine visits. 3) As much as the Dr and scheduler try to assess the time frame for a visit, patients will often take a lot more time - I have heard a lot of doctors talk about patients who want to discuss every complaint, not just the reason for the visit - there is no way the Dr or scheduler can know that a patient is going to start going into all of his/her health issues, often bringing in issues that aren’t relevant. Many of the complaints patients have about long waits are due to the patient (s) before them taking up more time than has been allotted for a visit, something that can’t be anticipated.

One reason for Dr and dentist (and vet) visits, I always try to get the first appointment of the day.