Waite became the first player subbed in an official AFL game when he was withdrawn from the contest after a collision with Tigers defender Alex Rance.
It appeared the Blues forward had suffered a knock to the head in the incident.
But Ratten said the stricter rules regarding treatment of concussed players was not the reason he chose to replace Waite with Kane Lucas late in the second quarter.
"We spoke about it, that we'd give the doc five minutes - we can adjust -and then we'd see what we could do from there onwards," Ratten said.
"We just got the call that he probably wasn't right. It was going to take 15 minutes or so to get him right, so we made the call that he might not even be right at the 15-minute mark."
Ratten says Waite might have come back onto the field if the old four-man interchange bench was still in operation.
"I think we would've given him a lot more time," he explained. "We would've been down to three men, but we might have given him 20 or 30 minutes."
Carlton dominated Richmond for the much of the night, but conceded seven goals in the third term and trailed by 14 points at the final change.
Despite the lapse, Ratten was delighted the Blues recovered to get their season off to a winning start.
"I think in the third we lost a bit of structure with Jarrad going down and we just couldn't find an avenue to overcome that," he said.
"They started to win the contested ball. They really dominated us in the third quarter in that aspect of the game.
"They gave themselves an opportunity, where before that we probably really dominated the game in the first half. We kicked poorly and gave them the opportunity.
"I think they had five inside-50s in the first quarter and scored three goals. They had eight in the second and they scored four goals. At the end of the day it was 69 inside-50s to 37."
Ratten said Waite was likely to be fit for Carlton's round two clash with Gold Coast at the Gabba.
"He's not too bad," the coach said, before adding he had not seen the collision between Waite and Rance.
"A marking contest, a ground ball, a shepherd, I wouldn't have a clue."
