This is always a hard decision for me. I also went to Jacksonville and I live in Illinois, so I basically needed to decide before I went how long I was willing to stay, and there’s always an inherent risk you may not choose enough nights, or you may have too many.

I think it depends on how important it is for you to get everything done within one trip. They usually try to preschedule as much as they can within the same day, but as you said depending on what the physician coordinating your care thinks is necessary, they may add more referrals to other offices and testing. Things like blood tests are easy, but if you end up needing additional imaging or receive referrals to other disciplines that have a high volume of patients like Neurology and Cardiology, you may have orders but it could be impossible to get an appointment with them within a matter of days, even if you have orders.

I think in the end it depends on your flexibility and budget. I work full time, so I had to give notice months in advance, but Mayo doesn’t work like that. I flew Southwest where changed flights are free, but I still had to abide by the time I took off from work. And I couldn’t afford the hotels on campus, and booking on a budget meant committing to a certain number of days. Leaving early wouldn’t result in a refund. Adding days was easier than subtracting them.

I ended up choosing to stay for a full week, arriving two days before my initial evaluation to ensure I didn’t have a flight delay that prevented me from getting to my appointment, and I only ended up having 2 days of appointments. They couldn’t get me anything else that I had orders for, which was disappointing.

My appointment was in one of the specialty clinics within General Internal Medicine at Jacksonville, and I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the specialty clinic I was in or General Internal Medicine (though the scheduling desk is with the same staff), but I unfortunately did not find them to be very detail-oriented or proactive about responding to the referrals/orders from my physician, which was a very different experience from when I was in Rochester. There, my physician put in orders and the scheduling desk handled everything for me and tried to schedule the tests/consults that have the longest wait times before I got there and canceled anything I didn’t need. And they immediately responded to orders after I was there; they called and sent me portal messages to notify me of scheduled appointments.

In Jacksonville, that has completely not been the case. I’ve had to personally call them (sometimes several times within one day because there’s no answer) to inquire about appointments. This is difficult because pending orders aren’t visible to patients in the Mayo portal, unlike at every other system where I have appointments. And clinics only open appointments for a few months at a time; if nothing is open during the scheduling block that’s currently open, you have to wait up to a month until the new slate of appointments opens up, which could be as much as 3 or more months away.

It’s happened to me several times that I was told “someone will call you when you’re scheduled” only for me to never receive a call, and when I did call, in the best case scenario, I was able to schedule. But more commonly—and this has happened to me at least three times—I’ll call, they tell me nothing’s been scheduled even though the orders are there, then when I try to initiate scheduling everything is booked and I have to wait a month to schedule.

For example, I was told to call on March 11th to try to get an appointment with my doctor in Internal Medicine in June. Although I have an order for a follow-up with him, the person I spoke to told me they won’t call me, or schedule it for me, and they can’t guarantee an appointment (which is the complete opposite of what my nurse told me in the same clinic).

I had that order in November and although I was there for a week as I mentioned, I couldn’t get the appointment then and still haven’t been able to get it.

I’m not trying to scare you off or anything… I just wanted to share that because I traveled to Jacksonville twice related to appointments that were supposed to be organized for me in General Internal Medicine, and it really didn’t go well. I was disappointed to stay extra days and not have things set up, and I also wish someone would have told me up front that at least for the clinic I’m seen in within General Internal Medicine, they put nearly all the responsibility for scheduling on their patients.

If I had known they don’t function like Rochester, I would have been much more aggressive about scheduling from the beginning. I will say other departments besides Internal Medicine have been much more organized and easier for me to collaborate with.

In the end, I think it depends on how much flexibility you have, your budget, and how willing you may be to return if needed. And if you end up having extra days without appointments, Jacksonville has beautiful weather and you’re not far from the beach. Not to sound dismissive, but though I was annoyed about the appointment situation, I made good use of my extra time eating and enjoying the beach.