Please tell this fact to the receptionist immediately after arriving in the clinic. The receptionist, (after discussing with duty administrator) may be able to adjust such a patient considering the work pressure on the clinic at that time. If it is not possible to adjust, then the receptionist will request you to show the case to any of the associate dermatologist.
But if it is not declared with receptionist and told to Dr. Kulkarni or other dermatologist after entering the consulting room, such a patient will not get any services.

No booking is required to show the lab report. Hand it over to the clinic staff, who will show it to Dr. Kulkarni or available dermatologist. If reports are normal, clinic staff will inform you so. If there is anything Doctor wants to discuss about the report, you will be called in after a little bit of waiting. You may also use Whatsapp or website for communicating the lab reports to us.

Old papers and prescriptions should be carried alongwith as : We provide some additional handwritten instructions on the prescription, which are not available on the computer. It is easy for the staff to access papers instead of peeping on the desktop for every small query regarding your consultation. In a rare situation of power or computer failure, we can give proper service.

Patients having severe pain, burning, itching,etc. who need urgent consultation need not hesitate to come to the clinic, at any time. Such patients are always adjusted for opinion of Dr. Dipak Kulkarni, if the associate doctor is convinced about the seriousness of the problem.
If Dr. Kulkarni comes early in the clinic, he can adjust some additional patients at that time. So those patients who are coming without a booking can try to come early morning at 8:30 a.m. and take a chance.
Patients, if not adjusted for opinion of Dr. Dipak Kulkarni, can always seek booking with associate dermatologists available in the clinic. These are qualified dermatologists, They work in the principles laid down by Dr. Kulkarni, so there treatments closely match the ones given by Dr. Kulkarni. These doctors always take second opinion of Dr. Kulkarni in difficult situations and seriously ill patients.

There are many reasons.

1. Many times there are unexpected changes in the schedule of our doctors, especially Dr. Dipak Kulkarni. ( for attending a conference or a seminar, delivering a lecture or for personal meetings. ) Many times such changes in the schedule are not known to us up to 2 days in advance. So if bookings are given many days in advance, then we have to call each and every patient to reschedule the booking, which becomes a big task.
2. It was was found that the percentage of "NO SHOWS" is very high if bookings are given many days in advance. Many people simply "FORGET" that they have made a booking and do not turn up, compromising the chance of booking for another desirous patient.
3. The number of patients seeking bookings is so large, that even if we open the bookings one week in advance, all the bookings will be taken on the first day of opening them. For those who need booking for some urgent problem, it is an inconvenience.

Patients desirous to have booking many days in advance, may use website for this purpose.

There are two situations. If patient comes late but his number is yet to be called by staff,due to some delay from our side, then the patient can still be taken at time of his regular turn. In this situation, there is no loss or inconvenience to patient.
But if the patient arrives late, unfortunately after his serial number was called when staff cannot find him in place, then he will be made to wait further for a LONG TIME.
Thus someone may come later than the Reporting Time, but at his own risk.

Due to various reasons, time required for consultation of a particular patient varies a lot, from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. Service to seriously ill patients, hospital calls, unscheduled small procedures, patients referred by other doctors for urgent consultations are some of the other reasons for delay. Due to heavy load of work, all doctors are working continuously and there is no buffer time to make up the delay. Thus a time when particular serial number is called may be unpredictable as it varies by almost 30-60 minutes.
The senior staff is continuously studying the pattern of arrival of patients and keep modifying the reporting time to be told to a particular serial number to reduce waiting time for the patients. In case we are grossly behind schedule, then we call up patients who are yet to arrive in the clinic, avoiding delay for them. We are committed to employ better management skills and reduce the waiting time.

Alok clinic has set its priorities for the service to the patients.
First priority is quality service, meaning thereby we will give reasonable time for each patient required for proper diagnosis, discussion, query solving and giving treatment instructions.
There is a large number of patients desirous to have consultation in Alok clinic and it is difficult to enroll all of them. Thus, Our Second priority is is to accommodate maximum number of patients requesting for bookings.
Both these priorities increase the strain on the time management of Alok Clinic and jeopardize our punctuality. This often leads to long queues. But we feel quality of service and extending service to more number of patients is more important than punctuality.
We were giving fixed timed appointments till 2009. But after realizing the fact that fixed timed appointments will jeopardize our priorities, we have stopped them.

No. The reporting time should not be confused with a fixed appointment time. Alok Clinic has stopped giving fixed timed appointments since 2009, due to ever increasing load of work. Even if the word appointment is at times loosely used by Alok Clinic staff due to convenience; it merely means BOOKING OF A PATIENT FOR CONSULTATION OR PROCEDURE ON THAT DAY.

When a booking is made, patients are given a serial number for that particular day. They will be called in for consultations as per their serial numbers given to them. (The patients with some urgent medical reason may be adjusted out of turn.)
Reporting time given to the patient is the time when he / she should report to the clinic. This time is based on our experience of workflow, when a speed of approximately 8 patients per hour per doctor is maintained. But it is not a fixed time of appointment. As the time taken by each patient may vary anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, it is extremely difficult to anticipate a correct time when a particular number will be taken in. This time is approximately 30-45 minutes beyond the reporting time.
Patients can cut their waiting time by using Alok Clinic Live section of the website, which lets you know the last number cleared by a particular doctor in the clinic at a particular point and can tell you an approximate time when you will be taken in.
Patients will not be considered LATE, as long as their respective number is yet to be called for consultation. So if the clinic is running behind schedule then they will not be considered late. But if they arrive after the number is called, they will be declared LATE and will be made to wait for a considerably long time.