Therapist always 5 mins late.

It bothers me...I m the first appt. N he comes out always 5-6 mins late to get me.
It annoys me. I m 15 mins early always...
I don't wanna talk to him about...its about ethics...u know the time....be prepared ...start on time I pay for full 50 mins...arghh
Is this the norm?? Seriously considering changing the T. 7 mins late...if he's 10 mins late...I m leaving !!!!!!!

This would really bother me. I hate lateness. I get that people are late sometimes for reasons they can't help but it is not ok in my opinion to make a habit of it. I wouldn't see a therapist who couldn't keep good time, it would irritate me to the point that I just wouldn't be able to work with them.

Yes that would annoy me too. Soup

My T is chronically late, sometimes it annoys me, but mostly I learn to expect it.. So, I show up about 7mins before when my appointment is scheduled to start and I expect to spend about 15mins waiting, maybe a little more. It's not that big of a deal to me, because T always gives me more than enough time in session. However, if your T is starting late all the time and not tacking it on the end of the appointment, then you should bring it up. Those are the kinds of things you should address with your t. Good luck!

I'm not a stickler for time. I live my life by the bells all day (I'm a teacher), so I try not to be too obsessive about it elsewhere in my life. Five minutes late doesn't bother me in the least. So long as I was getting the amount of time I am paying for, personally, I wouldn't worry about it. I certainly wouldn't leave a therapist if this was the only issue. My therapist starts his sessions about 10 minutes after the hour and they go to the hour. He's pretty consistent about that. So I know if I have a 5PM appointment, we'll get started abut 5:10. Works for me. I'm still getting my 50 minutes.

I don't think it's that bad. My ex-therapist was always 20 minutes late (at least) and once he was an hour late. It was annoying, but I never said anything. He was apologetic, but he really had bad time management skills.

Do you get the full 50 minutes by the time it is over? If you don't then definitely say something.

I've found that there's always a time discrepancy between various clocks. Even the two clocks in t's office show different times. The clock in the waiting room is 10 minutes off from my phone's clock...
I'm always early (I hate getting to appointments late), but my t is regularly late. she seems flex on the time though. She's never kicked me out, or shorted me on my time. A previous t was always about 20 minutes late, but she would end at the time we would have had she not been late. as difficult as it was for me to bring up (I hate confrontation), I talked to her about it. she agreed that it was problematic, and it was "her bad". Sessions lasted the correct amount of time after that, though she was still always 20 minutes late. I just started adjusting my arrival time so I wasn't waiting for 35 minutes before sessions.
What prevents you from wanting to talk to t about your time concerns? If it's big enough to prompt you to leave t, then I assume it's big enough to address with him. Is there another reason you want to leave t, and this is a convenient excuse? Or is confrontation difficult for you also? Or is there Some other reason you don't want to talk to him about it?

that's really annoying. could you talk to him about it? i always arrive 10 minutes early and mine is on time. i couldn't stand a late T.

I thnk time is important and consistently 5 minutes late would piss me off to no end. I would talk to the therapist about the time I am paying for and if it could not be resolved- find a new one. If the therapist was going 50 minutes from the time they came and got the client - then I would not be as upset - I would just start going to the appoinment 5 minutes later myself.

The question I have is if he's cutting your time short. Like, you end at 10 til, but start five after. That's 45 minutes and sure, I'd say something.

On the other hand, for example, my T works in a clinic. Every single T grabs their client five after (I've noticed how the door opens between the 5-10 minute after mark and the waiting room ends up with fewer and fewer people). I've never been shorted time and I recognize this is the way the clinic runs it. My guess is my T works back to back clients and so this is a few minutes to prep for me.

Since he works in a clinic his start time is whatever time he gets in. So, even if I were his first appointment, I wouldn't expect him to get me until 5-10 minutes after the hour.

Also, the clock thing. Most places I've ever had appointments with allow for at least a 5 minute discrepancy. So maybe you think he's 5 minutes late and he thinks he's only like 2 or not even late at all.

mt T was always on time and is now always 5 min late . I have a feeling for my situation my insurance has changed to 40 min sessions for billing instead of 45 min sessions but I have not asked her about it . I don't want to make her think it matters so much

That's the thing..I don't get 50 mins. We end on time..today it got very late...n I was soo pissed...I wanted to walk out ..but I saw he was with another patient..how does she go over for so long...and I can not? Maybe they were in deep discussion ..fine..he should space out his appts then...if his time is important...then so is mine!!!!
I just feel like he does not want me to be his client....I sat there triple checking if I had an appt today...I knew he was in..cuz his car was there..was left very confused..did he forget he has an appt? Is he purposefully trying to make our appt short?
I don't want to talk to him about it...because its clear he doesn't care...I got the message...if I confront him n he will apologize ...but I would feel like I am forcing him to give me 50 mins when he doesn't want to.
I don't want anyone to give me something they don't want...I don't want to Be where I m not wanted or respected. U just take a hint and leave. That's what I am planning to do. Am disaapointed.

Are you sure your sessions are supposed to be as long as you think? Depending on the billing code, they could be 45 minute sessions. It is a different billing code than for longer sessions. You might ask.

I doubt this is about him not wanting to work with you. I doubt this is about caring less for you than other clients. I haven't found most therapists to act quite that passive-aggressively.

Clarify the number of minutes your sessions are supposed to be. That is the place to start. He may schedule every hour, but bill for 45 minutes so he has time between clients. Explain how starting late is causing you distress and see what he has to say.

The CPT manual provides for flexibility by identifying time ranges in the descriptions of the three codes, as follows:
90832: 16 to 37 minutes
90834: 38 to 52 minutes
90837: 53 minutes or longer

And he didn't have another appt after me...I saw him leave his office( didn't Go to hiss car) while I was in my car...so really he could ve given me extra time easily..but chose not to.

Lolagrace I will try to look up the codes in the insurance claim he filed.

Is this really about the 5 minutes? or is this more about the meaning you place on those 5 minutes? Are there other areas in your life where you feel like you don't matter to people? Is this really the case of you not mattering to him, or is this simply about his office practices, completely not tied to his his feelings about you at all? Sometimes we put meaning on things that really aren't what is going on. That's good reason to discuss this with your therapist. I suspect he could help clarify what is going on and perhaps help you understand he isn't do this out of lack of caring for you. He may be bad at time management -- something he should improve on -- but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with his feelings about you specifically. He still needs to hear your feelings about it and either improve in that aspect or at least help you understand what is going on.

My therapist couldnt be on time to save her life. I know if she says we are going to talk at 2:00, it will be at least 2:30. When she still lived in the same country as me, if i had a morning appointment, i would just go pick her up and have a cup of coffee in my car to bribe her to hurry up and i would call her and let her know i was waiting with a treat for her so she better get out there. Even then, she would still take forever!

Just something that I have notice about all appointments, doesn't matter if it's therapists, doctors or plumbers. When one appointment runs long it backs them up for the rest of the day. Then if more than one appointment goes long then it's worse.

So if having your therapist start you appointment on time is important to you (and it is to me) then scheduling your appointment early in the day can help out a lot.

Over time, I've just learned to kind of average things in my head as far as session length goes. My T almost never cuts my time short, although it has probably happened a few times. But considering the multiple times he's gone over our session time with me, considering the time he's spent with me on phone after hours, I can let a few minutes give or take go pretty easily. He's almost never more than his usual 10 minutes late (which I've come to consider his normal starting time so it really isn't late in my book). The few times he has been later than that, it was clear he was working with a client who needed that extra time. He still gave me my full session.

My pdoc appointments kind of work the same way. He's usually within about 15 minutes of our scheduled time, but things happen. Patients have emergencies that cause sessions to run longer than scheduled; I've been that patient on a few occasions, so I can understand that.

I've learned over the years that most appointments don't run quite as scheduled. I don't get too fussed about it unless I see the problem is that a doctor double or tripled booked patients (yes, that happens with medical specialists ALL the time). THAT is aggravating and those situations can cause appointments to run literally an hour or more behind. So, 5 or 10 minutes is truly small change to me. So long as I get that expected and allotted session time, I don't sweat it too much.

My T used to be at least 30 minutes late every week, I hated it, but didn't feel worth mentioning it and always said it was fine. Lately she has gotten much better with it and I rarely wait more than 10 minutes anymore. I guess she manages her time better, but I also know that because she's a Pdoc and emergencies happen she can be late any day.

But earlier this year I was the emergency she squeezed between two sessions and I'm so thankful for that that I don't care nearly as much.

My therapist is usually late, but I don't really mind unless I'm upset already, then the inconsistency can bother me. I've recently asked her if she can text me when she expects to be there, though.

Our appointments usually run far longer than the hour - I've literally had appointments of 1hr 30minutes. But she gets paid for as long as the appt runs, so I don't feel guilty about that.

Ironically my T is 15 minutes late right now. I also thought I had 50 minutes until months later when I got a bill and saw 45 minutes. That explained a lot as I felt she was cutting me short sometimes.

It's still not easy to see their boundaries. And my T gives no time in between. She's been 45 min late before. But most of the time she's not too late. Ha! Watch today be one of those late days. Hope not!

I was just looking up my explanation of benefits and noticed the code listed (and remembered you posted this) - I'm at the 53+ code. Interesting.

That always seemed to be the case with a former Therapist of mine.

I agree with it likely not being you he doesn't care about. I also agree that most t's are not passive aggressive like that (though some are). It's worth at least asking him how long the sessions are supposed to be.