Customer Service- Are Patients Abusing It?

Is it just me, or have you noticed that patients are much more demanding than 5, 10, 15 years ago. It used to be, you would ask a patient to jump, and they would ask "how high". Well... no, we never asked a patient to jump, but you get my drift. Yes, we are all about providing our 'customers' the best possible care as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don't get me wrong, without their business, we would not survive in this nasty and competitive business called health care. Patients have options, and can go wherever they wish for the services we provide.
I've been in this 'business' for over thirty years and have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, as far as patients are concerned. Lately, the 'ugly', are becoming the norm. This has nothing to do with physical appearance, rather, their belief that they are the only patient we have to deal with for the entire day and can spend massive amounts of time calling their physician's office for an order they left hanging at home on their refrigerator, having showed up on the wrong day, at the wrong time. Yes, we will call their physician's office, only to be put on hold for what seems like forever, meanwhile our other patients, also wanting good 'customer service' are left waiting until we take care of the first problem. I can't tell you the number of times a patient has said, "Well... I showed up today, so you HAVE to do my x-ray TODAY!" Of course we do, otherwise our customer service would be inadequate. All we want in return is a simple "thank you for working me in". Unfortuantely, this is something we rarely hear. What follows is an apology by us to our other 'customers' who have had to wait unnecessarily.
The problem is: time. No one has enough of it. Everyone is hurrying through their day with too many errands, too many appointments, too many 'things' to do in a limited amount of time. What did people do in the 'old' days before automobiles, dishwashers, automatic washers and dryers, computers, cell phones, refrigerators with ice makers, garbage disposals, and central air/heat. Our daily lives in 2009 are filled with time-saving devices to afford us MORE time, not less. Are we that much busier than 5, 10, 20 years ago? I wonder....... more to follow.......