A Call for Honesty in Appointments
Pingxintang has many senior physicians, and many whose books cannot be opened to walk-ins. For exactly that reason we have long been troubled by one thing: appointments.
Stronger appointment discipline can keep our senior physicians from being overworked or left waiting; it can shorten patient wait times; it can help guarantee continuous care for a single patient; it can reduce crowding and improve the waiting environment; and it can shut out scalpers and number-resellers. By any measure, appointments do nothing but good.
To make appointments work we have tried a series of approaches: phone booking primarily, in-person booking secondarily, even charging an appointment fee for certain physicians. Even so, some patients still book and don't show — and don't call to cancel — willing to forfeit the fee.
Senior TCM physicians who are still in this world are few; those still seeing patients are rarer still. With a resource this precious, we have only the duty to protect it; we have no excuse to waste it. When you see a no-show, the senior physician sitting idle, while who-knows-how-many other people couldn't get an appointment — does that waste not pain you? Does it not redden your face for our national character?
Through this medium we again call for honesty in appointments. We hope our national character can rise through "small things" like keeping a booking. To that end, anyone who fails to keep an appointment three or more times will no longer be offered the appointment service.
We are willing, with all of you, to work together to improve the social temperament and to raise the level of social trust.