Well, here we are, for our one Saturday of the month where I work at the office. Today we have everyone here - two front desk employees, an assistant, and two hygienists. Oh, and me.

So far my first patient just blew us off. It's no surprise, really - he also has blown us off on the payment front for about 6 months. He's going straight to collection today.

One of the hygiene patients also blew us off for the first appointment. We start at 9 am, and it's only 9:55 am at the moment, so it could still be a good day (production-wise) but we started off missing 2 of 3 patients. Everyone still gets paid, though.

People say they want these appointments, but even though we confirm them, or try to if possible, leaving message after message on their machines, they conveniently "forget" them when the day comes. They're booked months in advance, especially for the hygiene side of the schedule.

I have better things to do, too. Both my kids have their last soccer games today, and I wouldn't have minded going to one or both of them. Plus, it's expensive to open the doors - no one is exactly making minimum wage here. Failed appointments probably cost me over 100 dollars an hour, because we don't book 6 people in that hour - we have 1.

It really makes me wonder if I should just stay home on Saturdays from now on. They're booked probably into May of 2009, but maybe next summer I should just take them all off, then start again (maybe) in the fall. We'd like to be accessible for our patients, but when they care less than we do, I don't know if it's worth it.