From the CNNHealth website comes an article that speaks to putting a value on time spent waiting in the doctor’s office.

The average wait time at doctors’ offices in the United States is 24 minutes, according to a report released in 2010 by Press Ganey, a group that researches health care performance.

When he keeps patients waiting more than 15 minutes, Dr. Timothy Malia, a primary care physician in Fairport, New York, hands them a $5 bill. If patients in Eugene, Oregon, wait more than 10 minutes to see Dr. Pamela Wible, they receive a handmade soap or a bottle of lotion. When Dr. Cyrus Peikari, an internist in Dallas, recently had to miss a day of work because of a family emergency, he gave the patients whose appointments he canceled $50 at their next appointment.

One patient didn’t want to take the check, but Peikari insisted. “I suggested to him, ‘Your time is just as valuable, if not more so, than mine.’ “

Read the full story here on the CNNHealth website.

*Photo courtesy of shadphoto.