My take: Colon cleansing, patient satisfaction

1) A reader writes: “I would really like it if you could blog about all the craziness involved with detoxification and cleansers.”

My take: I wrote about it a few years ago. For more, I’m going to defer to the woo-busting king, Orac.

2) A reader writes: “I’d like to hear your thoughts on this growing concept of healthcare customer service.”

My take: Physicians can certainly do a better job communicating with patients and improving the patient experience. Shorter wait times and improving access to the system would be two examples.

However, there are cases where what’s best for the patient may not always be congruent with good customer service. If a patient demands an unnecessary test or medication, should the physician acquiesce in the name of keeping the patient happy? How about the drug-seeking patient demanding narcotics?

More worrying is that compensation is increasingly linked to patient satisfaction scores. I can see some doctors caving in to questionable patient demands simply to keep their scores high, and maintaining their incomes.

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