I wouldn't. You are lucky to have insurance to pay for a good portion of the bill. You were seen by the doctor. You are paying for his years of experience, not by the minute. If you don't pay the bill and need to see this doctor again, he won't see you. I don't see what you would be gaining.

No I wouldn't expect the dr. to leave my emergency to keep a scheduled appt.

I chose to wait because its a pain in the butt having to reschedule. I don't want to have take my child out of school to have to go for an appt. I'd rather do it on our time. I also did not know that we were going to be waiting an hour.

Sometimes I feel that the dr.'s think that the patients time is not as important as theirs. They also schedule appts. too close together. So again we wait.

My dh didn't know that alot of dr.s still charge the office visit fee when you don't show up for the appt. Well things happen right? Why should they charge us for a missed or canceled appt when they don't reimburse us for our time being wasted waiting too long for them.

I also think I'm not too happy about this particular situation because I didn't think much of the dr. I was told by a few people she should have handled the exam differently than she had. I don't plan on going back to her. I'll find someone else.

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Mary

It does stink that you had to wait so long, but emergencies do come up, I know that when I was pregos I spent a lot of time in the Labor and Delivery emergency room dragging my doctor away from his office and I am so glad that he was willing to come. I also know that the medical system in this country is crazy. Things are way to expensive and there is not enough help from the government for these cost. My ob/gyn actually stopped delivering babies because his insurance each month was more than he could pay. it was over $70,000 a year just for babies, not to mention all the insurance for other services, this is all due to the fact that there are no regulations on how much you can sue a doctor for, and the regulations to keep bad doctors out of business is horrible. I hope things go better for you next time.

My dh works in a doctors office and things do get behind sometimes. If an emergency comes up, it's first. That throws the schedule out the window for the day. If you or your were the emergency, you would want to be seen first.

My father was a family doctor. He had people waiting hours to be seen by him. He was a good doctor, and never rushed you. People liked that about him. Now you may not care for this doctor, but I've seen doctors I don't care for, but if they have the knowledge and experience, I am willing to overlook they may not have the greatest bedside manner.

Emergencies do happen, my OB waited for me to get there and had a lady pushing at the hospital. I had the fastest appointment ever. I appreciate she waited to see me, but I have done my time in her waiting room.

Some doctors make their rounds before the office, maybe someone dies or is very ill, and of course when you come in for a visit, and ask, oh can you check over so and so too? Thus in the time frame allotted for one patient, the doctor now sees your other child. And no doctor wants to NOT check over someone that is ill.

But a lot does all come down to the scheduling, yes. Unfair to ask you to wait, no. But emergencies do happen. And if it was MY needing MY doctor for an emergency I'd be grateful to not be seen by a strange doctor.

Of course rescheduling is an option, the office staff could've offered to those waiting, another appointment. For a specialist though, you may have waited a long time for another appointment. Heck, my OB won't see me for my 6 week checkup until I am atually 11 weeks post partum. I didn't call soon enough for an appointment, so now I wait.

I would call and speak to the billing person, and ask if they will just acept the amount the insurance has paid, and your co-pay if you made one. Some will write it off. Explain you waited that day, and you are unhappy about it. I took my daughter to an ENT at Loyola and it was over $500 for her inital visit, and our insurance does not cover any hearing tests or anything. My daughter had a surgery that cost over $15,000. So not only did we travel 2 hours each way, my daughter missing school, hubby off work, we waited to see him. Cause he was the best. And that was worth my time.