Chances are if you’ve never been admitted to a hospital, you know someone that has. If that admission was unplanned, you likely waited a long time in the ER before you or your friend/loved one was transported up to the hospital floor.
If hotels ran like hospitals, they’d run themselves out of business. Imagine the desk clerk, instead of giving you your room key (swipe card?), telling you, “I’m sure your room will be ready in the next 2-4 hours, or at change of shift, Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham…”
What is it about hospitals and all this waiting?
For one thing, hotels have the tremendous advantage of their customers planning their departure dates. All the hotel has to do is enforce a “checkout time,” after which a guest is threatened with paying for another day’s stay–voila!–let the march of checker-outers begin!
Hospitals wish they could do the same thing, but there are major differences. The main difference is that you and I aren’t paying directly for the hospital bed–insurance is. So there’s no personal incentive to get out quickly.
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