When it comes to booking an appointment with your primary-care physician, Mondays are a bad call.
Your best bet is to book the first appointment of the day – or the first appointment after lunch – any other day of the week, according to Dr. Adam Kassam, Chief Resident in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
“Of course, it depends on the clinic and provider circumstance – going to a hospital versus a clinic, versus going to a family doctor – but from a primary care perspective, Mondays are high volume because people who get sick towards the end of the end of the week will try to tough it out for a couple of days, and if it doesn’t get better over the weekend, they want to be seen,” Kassam said.
“The first appointment of the day, or the first after lunch, tend to be the highest efficiency, just because there isn’t a patient backlog – usually. Physicians will be caught up on paperwork and not as delayed because there are other patient concerns.”
Kassam recently appeared on CTV’s Your Morning, discussing patient tactics that could help an individual make the most out of their doctor’s appointment, whether it is routine and scheduled ahead of time or booked for an acute or urgent need.
The best way to maximize the appointment window with a primary care physician is to come prepared, Kassam noted.
“Come in with a specific focus in mind and focus on that issue or collection of issues. Have your current medication list up to date. Sometimes, they will have that, but if you’ve seen another doctor since your last visit, or if there’s been a change in health, they might not and it’s helpful to have all that information centralized,” he noted.
Write down any questions you might have. If you are being referred to a specialist, you might need to know why you are being sent to another health-care provider and what the process and expectations are. Remember to ask your doctor for a game plan, if you are ill and your symptoms don’t improve in the anticipated amount of time. If your doctor’s office isn’t open, what do you do? These are some things to consider before leaving the exam room, Kassam explained.
When it comes to the sometimes-frustrating delays Ontarians encounter in seeing a physician, be it a primary care provider or a specialist, there are a number of contributing factors, he added. Clinic models and patient volume are just one reason you might have to wait to see a doctor, if your concern is not urgent.
“(Delays) are indicative of a growing population, aging population. As we grow older and grow in size, the demands on family doctors start to get larger. Due to the fact they are the first line of our health-care providers, they are the canaries in the coal mine; they are the ones seeing the changes first-hand. That’s partly why there’s a delay,” Kassam said.
A growing population, coupled with what most physicians recognize as a shortage of doctors in the province, can exacerbate the delay, and while professional opinions on doctor shortages vary, the effects are felt by patients in communities across Ontario.
“In rural Ontario, across the board, people would recognize there are doctor shortages, both in primary care as well as specialist providers. In urban areas, that can depend. Some might say there is an oversupply of certain types of physicians. If you read the Ontario Medical Association literature, they would agree there continues to be a doctor shortage. It’s manifested by difficulty in getting in to see your family doctor, specialist wait times, among a number of different manifestations,” Kassam explained.
“That will continue to get worse before it gets better because, unfortunately, the Ministry of Health did cut 25 residency spots last year. It seems kind of counterintuitive and I would say the majority of physicians find that a bit mind-boggling, in circumstances where there are challenges with addressing need. For the most part, physicians believe there is a doctor shortage.”
Kassam, who is not a primary care physician, noted individuals should address any concerns or questions they may have with their primary care doctor first as opinions may vary, depending on how their clinic or medical practice is set up. Always follow up with your doctor and ask when you need to book your next appointment, he added.