I had a similar circumstance recently. A woman came in with two kids as new well-child patients and had an hour blocked out of my morning schedule. Another woman came in with a sick kid and I squeezed her in first - simple triage. The woman ended up having to wait 23 minutes exactly before she stormed out. Part of the problem was one of her kids misbehaving badly - running around, flipping off the lights, and throwing a screaming trantrum. My MA called her back and she said the child was in time-out on the couch, where he was screaming, kicking, and slobbering face down. My MA said that this is a place of business, and perhaps he could do his time out in the car. She then got up and exclaimed how she had waited over 20 minutes and she would take her children to another place of business. We spent the next hour with no patients because of her cancellations.
This patient then went on Facebook and told all her friends about her bad experience. Fortunately, she did not list the practice name. She also posted a tirade to me as a private message on Facebook, that consisted of a rambling run-on sentence that took up an entire page.
Her message certainly made her sound unstable. I do not think anyone should be so upset about a 20 minutes wait. However, I felt my employee's words to her were completely unprofessional and I'm thinking about letting her go. I'd appreciate any thought you have on the subject.
