From doctors to restaurateurs, physiotherapists and beauticians, more and more professionals are complaining about appointments or reservations not being honored. People do not come, do not warn. This is a significant shortfall that has consequences for the entire community. Testimonials.
While the executive is considering introducing a “rabbit tax” for medical appointments not honored, many professionals are showing their annoyance, or even more, in the face of these practices which seem to be on the rise.
“I constantly face it, says Patricia Saint-Guily, general practitioner in Toulouse. it ranges from one to four consultations per day on an average of about thirty-five. In France, this represents 28 million appointments not honored per year and the equivalent of 4,000 full-time doctors per year. It’s monstrous!”
“And we are faced with public authorities who refuse to educate, she continues. For me, what is most important is to educate people. Apparently it’s no longer fashionable to talk like that but hey… It’s a real scourge. We are wasting money, time. However, we need to free up medical time, so you can imagine that the time of 4,000 doctors per year would be a lot of extra work, knowing that there are 20,000 of us in France”.
For Patricia Saint-Guily, the rule is now simple in her office: if a person she has never seen does not come and does not take the trouble to cancel her appointment, she does not offer her the possibility of setting another date. “I don’t need rude patients in my practice. I don’t need to waste money. I don’t need to waste time or waste my patients’ time.”
For a patient she follows, things are different. “The next time, I educate by saying that this is not how I want to operate and I warn that after three appointments not honored, it’s” goodbye “.
For the general practitioner, this phenomenon already existed before the Covid, in 2018, it was already reported by the medical profession. But it may have increased. She observes that it is young people under 30 who have the most difficulty in respecting their commitment and in warning in the event of impediment. “I tell them: if you have an appointment with a friend in a café and you don’t go, I’m sure you’ll call. I don’t deserve less. If I can’t honor an appointment you, I’ll warn you. Don’t doubt it! I’m a person, not a machine. It’s true that perhaps online appointment booking “mechanizes” things a bit, you don’t have to not dealing with a human being. Maybe it plays?
For the Toulouse chef at the head of the gourmet restaurant “Les jardins de l’Opéra”, Stéphane Tournié, the same observation. He publishes a video on TikTok to deplore this lack of respect.
Whatever the professions, the scourge is the same. Emmanuelle Ruggieri is a beautician at the Davy Institute in Montauban. “Just this morning, we had two cancellations. We had a 2-hour slot with a room reserved for a person blocked for nothing. Treatments at €150. It’s a shortfall. Some warn at the last moment, others not at all and it happens that we have no more news”.
For this beautician, the situation has nevertheless improved since the head of the salon chose to take out a subscription to “Planity”, a platform that sends reminder text messages to cell phones, including the day before appointments. “Despite this, we have people who do not come”, she laments.
Marie Prim is a physiotherapist in Mirepoix in Ariège. She’s used to last-minute phone calls. “I take people into action, it’s 3/4 hour appointments. I don’t have a big platform on which I rotate several patients. So when people don’t come, I don’t I’m not paid. That someone has problems, it can be understood, but it’s often the same people…”.
Marie Prim explains that these missed appointments cost her time and money. Most patients are surprised to learn that she doesn’t get paid if they don’t come. “It’s as if the care was due”she explains.
“I work in a medical center with nurses, midwives, doctors, podiatrists… We all complain! I’m going to set up a hutch in the waiting room to put all the rabbits in!” she finally said with a smile.
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