Late Arrival Policy

According to several surveys, one of the most common complaints patients have is that they have to wait too long in a doctor’s office to be seen. The waiting room is exactly that — a room in which to wait. And wait. And wait. And then, after they are moved to an exam room, they wait some more.

SVPAM Providers are very conscious about running on time. We do our best to schedule people for appropriate lengths of time to minimize the wait time for the next patient. We have patients who we know need extra time and we take that into consideration when scheduling their appointments (unless it’s an emergency). We do not like to make patients wait for more than a few minutes barring any emergency situations. Of course, there are bad days, and things happen and we can get behind schedule. We give patients the amount of time they require and deserve and if we are delayed for the next patient we always apologize for the tardiness.

As we have studied the reasons for not running on time, the most common reason is that patients arrive late and are insistent on being seen, often with the reasoning that “SVPAM doesn’t run on time so why is my time any less important.” And the answer is that your time is absolutely no less important. However, in accomodating late arrivals, it causes a ripple effect & then patients who arrive on time are having extended periods of wait time as we accomodate the late arrival.

In order to maintain the schedules to the best of our ability, SVPAM, like many others, has a “late arrival” policy. A patient who is more than 15 minutes late to their appointment will be asked to reschedule for another time. This may be later the same day or it may be at the next available appointment several days later depending on the purpose of the visit. Sick patients will be worked into the schedule that day in the next available appointment slot.

Please note that if you have extenuating circumstances, communicate with us! If the schedule permits, we may be able to make accommodations.

We strive to do our best to serve all our patients/families with the outmost care and timely attention to the scheduled appointments. Thank you for working with us to improve this situation!

**Please note ~1. Your appointment “time” indicates the scheduled start time of the nurse intake; that is not the time you will necessarily be “seen” by the provider. 2. If asked to reschedule due to late arrival, our billing office reserves the right to assess the standard no-show fee of $50.00.