Why patients so eager to hate the physician profession: “I suspect the payment system has something to do with it. When patients don’t know what we charge for things (we are not allowed to disclose our fee schedules), they assume we are milking the system for all it’s worth. The fact that the majority of transaction happens below the surface devalues the visit.”
Nice post from Dr. Rob. I’d like to add that the media tends to hype cases that portray physicians negatively – it sells more papers. Stories where patients are satisfied with their care and happy with their physicians make for boring headlines.
That being said, doctors have the come to grips with the better informed patients of today. The internet will be the primary source of consumer health information, and we need to better handle patients who show up with preconceived, self-researched notions of their condition.
Related posts:
- Why doctors should care about search engine optimization, and why SEO can make or break your practice
- Anesthesiologist
- Medical studies in the media
- JCAHO and why doctors are spending less time with patients
- Free doctors, save Medicare
- Why doctors order so many tests
- Salaried physicians are lazy doctors
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How about triangulation, a standard catch phrase in the psychotherapy world?
Payors (medicare , medicaid, and/or insurance companies), patients and doctors represent 3 corners of a triangle. It is absolutely in the payors best interested to pit the doctors against the patients, so they, ie the payors, continue to smell like a rose.
How often do we in the primary care world hear patients state, “You need to get this approved for me” rather than “My insurance company does not cover this.” How many times does a mail order pharmacy, which saves insurance comanies money, screw up a scrip and the patient blames the doctor for not making the refill request in a timely fashion? How about copays? “Why do I have to come in, you just want my copay.” We do not set your copays, your employer and insurance company do. I can go on and on.
Although frustrated, I do not blame the patients. This is a concerted effort to pit patients against doctors, and vice versa, when the problem is the payors. “Transparancy” is meaningless. What we need is mutual respect, reaffirmation of the doctor-patient relationship, and a concerted effort against the payors, which are the problem.
>>"Although frustrated, I do not blame the patients. This is a concerted effort to pit patients against doctors, and vice versa, when the problem is the payors. "Transparancy" is meaningless. What we need is mutual respect, reaffirmation of the doctor-patient relationship, and a concerted effort against the payors, which are the problem."
I do blame the patients. They are not innocent in all of this. No, they do not enjoy the benefit of "transparency", something that has been nicely obscured by insurance companies and Medicare with their payer-specific schedules. But the patients are complicit; they and their employers who pay for "coverage" are willingly although sometimes ignorantly shrugging not just the sense of obligation to pay but also the obligation to have to even bother learning about payment.
There are no innocent parties here.
I also believe that the insurance companies are a major part of this problem! Personally, I feel that a return to people covering their own basic health care would help significantly. Insurance should only be used for extreme situations not routine care.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen as many docs have become comfortable with the status quo and do not want to discuss their fees with patients. The only time I get information on fees is when a claim has been denied and the usual fee for an ov is listed at $150-200, not the $60 (paid by insurance companies) reported in previous comment sections on this site.
Why the anger against doctors? In my humble opinion and experience, it is because doctors are more concerned with their benefit and/or lack thereof and not concerned with what is most in the patient’s benefit…..
I place most of this at the foot of the altar of arbitrary guidelines and fear of malpractice.
What is do be done? Will doctors ever regain their voice in truly advocating for patient care? I am not holding my breath but I hope that doctors will start listening to their patients and not just following whatever guidelines have just been published! I hope that doctors will again be advocating for their patient’s best interests. But that is just my opinion……
OK -why is there an epidemic of anger towards doctors? Could it be that many people are feeling that their doctor is more interested in protecting themselves from malpractice rather than advocating for the patient’s best interests?
What does malpractice and a physician’s response have to do with patient anger? If anything, that fear should IMPROVE relations between physicians and patients, because multiple studies show the better the interpersonal relationship between a physician and his patient the less likely the physician is to be sued.
The reason patients are angry is because the physicians DON’T spend enough time with them, mostly because they keep signing up to be paid for maximum turnover.
Any patient who concerns himself with the relationship with the physician is not sick enough to see one.
All complainers should be dismissed from care, as not needing it.
If distressed by a symptom, I don’t care if my doc is Lucifer on a bad day. I want relief. I do not want a friend. I get my friends outside of care, and I do not have to pay high fees.
[...]“I came back to another post by Dr. Rob with a response to the comments on the NYT’s article. Frankly, it made me sad. In fact, when I tried to comment about it on Dr. Rob’s blog, I typed and wiped umpteen responses. In the end, all I could say was “Ouch”…
…Kevin Pho on kevinmd.com comments with his article, Shortage of primary care threatens health care system….
…It’s one thing to gripe as a patient, but it’s another to try to do something about it.”[...]
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