It Pays To Make an Appointment

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One of my goals for this year is to take care of and manage my health better, including routine and regular doctor appointments. So my first order of business in January was to see my primary care doctor for my semi-annual checkup. And of course, as part of that, he wanted to see bloodwork to make sure all my numbers are where they need to be. So last week I made an appointment with the lab to get blood drawn this morning. The lab opens at 6:00am, so I made an appointment at 7:00am. I figured that with the frigid cold weather and the early appointment time that there wouldn't be a lot of people waiting to get blood drawn. I received a confirmation text this morning that instructed my to click a link to check in once I arrived. When I parked and was walking up to the lab entrance, I clicked the link and completed the check-in process. Literally, as soon as I opened the door, the nurse was standing there calling my name. I was like, "Wow, now that's some quick service!" thinking that there was no one else in the waiting room at the lab. But as I glanced around the waiting room, I probably saw about 50 people sitting in chairs. The nurse said to me in a louder than normal voice, "It pays to have an appointment." I see what she was doing there; she wanted to make sure everyone in the waiting room knew that making an appointment was the way to go, instead of just being a walk-in customer. I can't believe so many people would show up to a lab to get bloodwork done without having an appointment. It's super easy to do, and took me less than a few minutes to make the appointment. How about you? In your experiences of getting lab or bloodwork done, did you make an appointment or did you just walk in and wait to be seen?