4 weeks ago
8
ELBONOMICS - Rey Elbo - The Philippine Star
February 18, 2025 | 12:00am
I suspect that 95 percent of customers don’t want to wait. That’s why decent service providers would give you their acceptable waiting time.
For pizza delivery, it’s not more than 30 minutes. For the fast-food industry dine-in transactions, that’s 60 seconds or less. Of course, there are certain exceptions so they ask your permission:
“That would take us 15 minutes. Are you willing to wait?”
How about in the health care industry?
Last Friday, I consulted a specialist at a major hospital. She was not my first choice but a male specialist who was not scheduled to work on that day despite the clear announcement on the hospital website. Anyway, that’s another story.
Preferring a male physician is not about gender bias. You’ll understand it better if I tell you I like to be treated by male urologists. In my case, however, I had a sore throat and persistent coughing. I had no choice. I waited for more than three hours because I didn’t have an appointment. If time is money, I could have amassed hundreds of thousands, at least in my dreams.
In the health care industry, there’s no such thing as customer satisfaction. That’s why you’re treated as a patient, not a customer. And for a good reason--when you enter a hospital for medical intervention, your status can change in an instant, from being a “customer” to being a “patient.”
Being patient means acceptance of the age-old principle that “patience is a virtue.”
So that waiting time would not amount to waste, health professionals must make things productive by asking patients to fill out a personal information form under the pretext they’re doing something. The more, the better even if such information contributes to nothing.
“How many are you in the family?” Do you mean the ascendants or descendants?
“Are you covered by an HMO?” My answer is easy and swift. “I’m overaged. I will pay cash using my social security pension.” It happens all the time. One reason for that is the doctors’ propensity to get their patients’ information, more than what’s necessary.
Conjunction fallacy
Asking for more information than what’s perceived to be necessary is information bias that must be correlated with the “conjunction fallacy.”
Psychologist and Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024) described the “conjunction fallacy” as the mistaken belief that multiple events are more likely to occur together than separately.
When you see a neighbor’s new dog roaming around your garden, you’ll readily think the dog is ready to do all the damage - destroy the plants, deposit its poo and wander around the garden under a mistaken belief that you as the owner don’t care. Instead of thinking only of one possibility like wandering around the garden, you’re afraid that all types of destruction can happen.
So, why wait for the dog to do all this? Surely, you’ll get up from the warm embrace of your couch to shoo the dog away.
Then, I realized that my doctor had committed the “conjunction fallacy” without her knowing it. She diagnosed me as someone suffering from influenza and pneumonia, not either influenza or pneumonia. That’s why she prescribed four types of medicines. Take note of that.
When I got home poorer by $100, I checked MayoClinic.org which says the conditions for both ailments are almost the same, except that in my case, my symptoms are limited only to coughing and fatigue out of ten other listed symptoms.
Perfect timing
Another important issue when we talk about “conjunction fallacy” depends much on the time of the day when you decide on something or in the case of my lady doctor, her diagnosis and prescribed treatment would vary according to the time of the day. British psychologist Simon Folkard added “timing” to better understand the meaning of the “conjunction fallacy.”
Using logic as a tool, there is “ample evidence” in psychology to prove that “adults perform best on this sort of thinking during the mornings,” according to bestselling author Daniel Pink in “When – the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” (2018). That’s why it’s better for job applicants to “beg” for a morning schedule to get favorable treatment.
Another example. Your answer to an unfamiliar multiple-choice IQ test exam at 9 a.m. may be different when you take the same test at 3 p.m. of the same day. In my case, the doctor, when prescribing medicines in the morning, may be different from when she prescribes them in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, the woman doctor was in control of my situation that afternoon.
Another situation. If you would like to tie the knot with Rose, your long-time girlfriend, make the decision in the morning based on several factors that you decided on a long time ago, when you started dating her. You won’t regret it.
But if you can decide to wed or not to wed in the afternoon, chances are it would be different from your morning decision of that same day.
How about if you’re planning to marry another woman whom you met and befriended only two months ago? Before deciding on your second girlfriend, use the same factors that you accorded to Rose to be fair to both. If you’re confused, do the same exercise every day for at least one month.
Rey Elbo is a quality and productivity improvement enthusiast. Chat with him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email [email protected] or via https://reyelbo.com
