Weekend Office Hours

Leading horses to water may result in little or no drinking

At our suggestion, a local primary care clinic experimented with extended office hours this year. On the assumption if the office is open they will come, patients were offered routine visits one day a week until 8 PM and on Saturday from 9 to 4 PM.

Prior to this, our community had nothing other than the local hospital ER (easy access but VERY expensive) available after usual and customary office hours ended, typically at 4PM daily with no weekend openings.

There was no inference in the clinic's advertising program this would be an urgent care facility, nor a substitute for real emergency room cases. It was promoted as being available for everything from routine physical examinations to the usual primary care treatment of colds and ear aches, backaches, and rashes.

There was no "premium pricing" for this service, with charges at their customary level.

The project had two interesting outcomes, one of which was eager acceptance and use of the Thursday evening hours. The other was desultory use of the Saturday hours option. The former was gratifying and the latter was a real surprise.

What happened to all those working parents who couldn't take time off during the work week to get medical care for their kids?

There are some possible reasons Saturday hours weren't popular. The first is the advertising failed, and word of mouth didn't do the trick. The second is the advertising may not have been believed. ("What? Saturday hours? Gimme a break!") The third is simply the fact that weekends are for fun and who wants to go to the doctor instead of having fun?

This presumes, of course, that people prefer to wheedle time off from work to take care of medical business, thus saving Saturdays for golf, football, or driving an ATV through desert washes.

In the near future, the clinic will restrict extra hours to nights only and forget the weekend, but will probably try Saturdays again later using a new ad agency.