Or dentists offices should be open better hours. Id take either.
I started my new job last week. I have no PTO, and taking an unplanned day off on your second week is a bad look at best. I discovered today, I have a dental abcess. This is classified as a dental emergency, so I start looking. There are 100 dentists offices near me. 90 of them are open monday-friday 9am-4pm, or some other standard work day variation.
Maybe 5 are open until 6pm, which would be great for standard dental work, but this will be a longer procedure, so those are out.
Then there's the "24/7 dental emergency offices". Which are actually just call directories that route you to other places, if anywhere at all.
That left me with 2 options. One that is open for 4 hours on Saturday, and is booked out until late October, or a place over an hour away that doesnt take insurance.
I have a dental emergency, but my best bet is to go to urgent care for some antibiotics to bridge the gap until I can hopefully get a walk in appointment on Friday when we get to leave early. I have an emergency, but a hospital cant do anything for me until the abcess ruptures and I go septic, and even then all they can do is stabilize me. Id still have to go into a dentist.
Like, imagine this but with any other emergency. Oh, you cut your hand really badly? Unfortunately the stitching doctor is only open monday through Friday from 10am to 3pm and closed for a 2 hour lunch from 12-2pm. You broke your leg? Well all we can do is give you some Tylenol until you can hopefully get a walk in appointment at the bone clinic because their appointments are booking out 6 months.
And I get it, no one wants to work nights and weekends, but you're a DOCTOR. You chose healthcare (so did the hygienist and receptionists, I dont want to hear it). Just one dentist, on call. Or a surgen who doubles as an oral surgeon. Or a dentists office open nights and weekends.
It shouldn't be this hard to get emergency treatment.