Office visits are slowly becoming the latter. Like this story of a patient who “demanded” an antibiotic for her $50 co-pay:
After giving the situation a few minutes to cool off, I went back into the room and offered her a compromise. I would give her the antibiotic prescription if she agreed not to fill it unless her symptoms worsened or didn’t improve after a week. She quickly and very gratefully accepted.
To me, the irony was painful. Practicing good medicine would make her hate me, but providing good customer service made her thank me as if I’d just saved her life.
