● Visit when there is a lull in activity in the office. Many urgent care centers, for example, post their wait times on their websites. Or simply call the office and ask when there are fewer appointments scheduled. Scheduling a routine visit during popular vacationing times, like the holidays and summer, may be easier on a Friday, when people choose to leave town for the weekend.
● Choose a Monday morning -- most 9-to-5ers are rushing get ahead of the grind and may want to check in at work before heading to the doctor.
Bring Your Own Entertainment
Regardless of your scheduling strategy, you might sit in the waiting room for a while waiting for the doctor to call you in. In that time, you’ll notice a number of knick-knacks floating around the waiting room, tempting you to flip through the pages of a magazine or click through the channels of the waiting room TV. But all of those items in the waiting room have equally tempted someone else who perhaps was much sicker than you. So that devilishly scandalous magazine with all the Hollywood gossip you’ve been waiting to read is dirty. Sure, it’s dirty for the stories. But it’s even dirtier for all the microbes that have set up camp in its pages.
● Don’t read the magazines, play the board games or touch any of the other items in the waiting room.
● Bring your own magazines, books and entertainment to keep you occupied.
● Keep your stuff to yourself so as not to cross-contaminate them.