3 Easy Ways To Avoid Long Wait Times At the Doctor's

The patient’s daughter caught the altercation on tape as her mom scolded the physician, saying she’d been waiting over an hour to be seen by him. Peter Gallogly, a physician at Gainesville After-Hours clinic, is reportedly under criminal investigation after snapping back at the patient and later appearing to grab the daughter’s phone out of her hands. Watch the heated argument for yourself:

Dealing with rude doctors is not out of the ordinary. But the story does raise a number of questions—among them, why it often takes so damn long to get seen by a doctor.

Fortunately, there are three things you can do about it if you’re seeking medical care—either by a doctor at a clinic or a physician at an emergency room. Unless it's urgent, you can get in contact with a doctor straight from your home. But if you really need to make an appointment, here’s what you need to know about how to get seen the fastest:

1. Pick the first appointment of the day

As the designated spot for most non-serious illnesses, clinics are always highly populated. And if you go to a specialized clinic, it takes even longer to be seen since there’s probably not that many around you. But just like an airline, opting for the first (or even second) appointment of the day will get you better service since they're not backed up yet, Bola Oyeyipo, M.D., a board-certified family physician told HuffPost for a story on cutting wait times at the doctor's office.

2. Request paperwork in advance

This is one of the easiest ways to slash your waiting time before you even get there. Instead of spending several minutes filling out paperwork when you arrive, request for the documents to be emailed or mailed to your home prior to the appointment. This also allows you to spend more time completing the questions and actually reading the fine print, Sarah O’Leary, founder of Exhale Healthcare Advocates, told HuffPost.

3. Call before your appointment

Taking two seconds to call ahead to see if your doctor is running late will better prepare you for the prolonged wait time, O'Leary said in the same interview. And if you show up and see that it's going to take a while, it doesn't hurt to ask the receptionist if you can dip to go on a quick errand or snack run. And even if the schedule is off, always arrive on time so other patients aren't seen before you.

1. Avoid coming in on Monday

Unlike making an appointment at a clinic, getting seen at an emergency room is trickier because you can't schedule ahead of time. If possible, you can steer clear of coming in on Monday, which is the emergency department's busiest day, according to Jay Ladde, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Orlando's Regional Medical Center.

2. Bring a list of your medical history and medications

Even if you've been to that hospital before, it'll help move the process along much quicker.

“I think it helps expedite care," Dr. Ladde told Men's Health. "It also makes communication much better, it facilitates flow, it allows the triage process to be a little bit more smooth because a lot of times patients are not feeling well, so it's hard to communicate."

3. Have a good relationship with your primary care physician

If you have a good relationship with your primary provider, Dr. Ladde pointed out that they could offer to see you at their office—or even expedite the process of getting seen faster at the emergency department "by calling and saying, 'Hey, this is what's going on with this patient, I'm really worried about them. They're probably not gonna look all that ill, but I'm really worried they need to be seen more quickly.'"