Our former primary care doc office was notoriosouly (sp) late for appointments - to the point they had no wall clock in the office so you could not easily see how far behind they were. This is the same office, when I needed a surgical referral and called them, they said I needed to give them a surgeon's name. So sorry, but not on a first name basis with surgeons in the area. Called our former/current doc's office and got all the needed info. Frankly, I would not wait more than 30 minutes for a scheduled doc appt. Particularly if it's a multi-doc office. They triple book for insurance purposes. And guess what....my time is equally as valuable to me as their's is to them! I only go to doc's when I am ill. Neither DH or I have ongoing issues that need maintenance. If there are 5-6 docs in the office, and you can't see me within 30 minutes of when I'm scheduled...guess what...there are docs/offices that can.
As to ER's.....God bless Jan's experience. Like the other poster that was taking a family member to the ER for chest pains....I was taking DH to ER one night for stitches. He sliced he hand from heel of thumb across entire palm to base of ring finger. At the end of the day it took 14 stitches to close the wound. BUT....it took us over 7 HOURS in the ER to deal with that. Because we had to wait for the slip/fall victims who walked into the ER that winter night. Our ER dept.'s are like going to a deli counter...take a number and we'll take you in that order. So much for triage.