What your Doctor means by emergancy

This topic comes up not because of anything good, but because there
are people out there that take advantage of a system.

The system in question is the one set up for people that go to the
emergency room. Back in the day when this system was developed (and
every office has some type of system) everyone involved with making it
probably assumed that only real emergencies would happen.

In this day and age some people will go to the emergency room just so
they can force their doctor to see them sooner. For this type of
person it is generally for something small that they have been having
treated by their doctor already that is not an emergency.

Here is a fictional example of what I am talking about.

A person that did not set an appointment before a vacation they had
planned six months ago and now 2 days before their trip want to be
seen. They call in and insist that it is an emergency because their
knee always bothers them and now they really need to be seen before
their trip. When they find out that there is not availability before
their trip they start yelling at the person on the phone. They are
then advised that if they feel they truly need to go to an emergency
room then they should make that decision. The person then huffs about
this 'poor treatment' to their friends and some how finds out that if
they go to an emergency room then the doctor will be forced to see
them ASAP. With this in mind they go to the ER make a scene and then
call up their doctor saying that now they have to be seen before their
trip.

This fictional person has now taken a slot that could have been used
for someone with a broken bone or sever burns or anything else that
qualifies as an emergency. They have not only been inconsiderate to
other people but to their doctor and to the emergency room. They have
also spent an obscene amount of money.

This is not and never will be appropriate behavior.

I have been asked by patients wanting to know if they go to the ER if
they will be seen today when their appointment is the next day. For
that instance I said no.

First of all, by the time they would have finished dealing with the ER
then they would still have to be seen the next day because who has
ever heard of a fast trip to the ER?

Secondly all ER visits (at my office) are not scheduled by the
reception area but by the secretaries themselves. This is because they
schedule things by priority. Immediately life threatening, Urgent, but
not immediately life threatening or Less urgent. This is the same
method used in the Emergency Room which is why the wait can be so
long.

I just can't understand how some people can think that abusing this
system is a good thing. These same people with have fits about long
wait times that they have caused or added too. I just... I just don't
get it.