 |
Doctor Office |
| You call for a medical-appointment at doctor office, The first question the receptionist asks you is "What insurance do you have?" |
The media constantly advise you to consult-your-doctor. "Talk to your doctor," they say, as if you could walk into his office and have a cozy chat with him any time of day. But doctors today are not what doctors used to be. Today they're businesspeople. Years ago, a doctor would never say, "Hello, show me the money" before he asked your name. Actually, today doctors want to make sure you won't have to pay their fees out of your own pocket.
You go to your doctor office, which is usually divided into a waiting area and an office area behind a glass partition. You take a seat and wait.
|
|
| As you wait, you see at doctor office your doctor emerges occasionally to check files or consult a nurse. You try to catch his eye and smile, but he looks straight through you without a sign of recognition. This he learned back in Medicine 101 to save him smiling time. |
| You arrive a little early out of respect for his time, even as he respects yours. In fact, his office calls to remind you of your appointment the day before lest you forget and have to wait four months for another appointment - not to safeguard the doctor's time. |
| At last, you're ushered into an examining room at doctor office. The change of venue lowers the level of your fuming. The nurse orders you to strip and don a hospital gown so that the doctor can give you his immediate attention. All this indicates that his arrival is imminent. In fact, as the nurse leaves, she says, "The doctor will be right in." And he is - 25 minutes later. |
| When the doctor does come in, he gives you his undivided attention - for all of 15 minutes. This is your chance to "talk to your doctor," as they say in the pharmaceutical TV commercials. And this is the time to ask if a certain medicine you've seen advertised on TV is for you. |
| The doctor is overjoyed that you asked because it shows that you're an educated patient. So he diagnoses your condition and writes a prescription for whatever medicine he thinks you need - without you playing doctor. And if you ever get the impression that his eye is on the next patient as he checks your blood pressure, it's only because he wants to help as many sick people as he can. |
This is an excellent heads up for those of us watching our doctor office at Doctor4care (who doesn't?) And I can only imagine a few other ways this is happening, too. Any tests or procedures that can be handled in your doctor office — but put off for another day so they can charge again and again. |
| If your doctor suggests one of these tests or procedures for another day at doctor office, or even suggests you simply return for no apparent reason, then ask — no — insist — the test or procedure take place before you leave. If they say it can't be done, tell them you'll be happy to return, but you aren't willing to cough up another co-pay. |
| Explained a different way — your mechanic charges a basic fee for working on your car, no matter what gets done to it — in addition to the work that gets done to it. You take your car in for repair, and he only does part of the job — and insists you bring your car back tomorrow for the rest — and charges you that basic fee again. Would you stand for that? |
| Recently a patient contacted our practice after convincing herself, based on some Internet research, that her child had Attention Deficit Disorder. |
| The proliferation of medical information over the Internet has helped people take more responsibility for their health. Patients are able to educate themselves in ways we never thought of several years ago. It seems that individuals affected by nearly any medical condition have a Web community to turn to for support and education. The Web lets patients help each other and takes some of the work of patient education off of the doctor's hands. |
| As a physician, I'm not troubled by the autonomy of the informed patient. What troubles me is the proliferation of the partially informed patient and, frankly, the misinformed patient -- the patient who crosses the line from Internet-educated patient to cyberchondriac. |
| My impression is that people believe more of what they read than what I tell them. It seems that the general public less and less trusts traditional Western medicine based on scientific evidence. Meanwhile, some dubious theory from the Internet will be swallowed hook, line and sinker nine times out of 10. |
| When a patient comes to me with a set of symptoms that is concerning them, I apply my skills in history taking and my years of experience in evaluating similar problems, and I formulate a list of possibilities. Doctors call this process developing a differential diagnosis. |
| It takes about five years of daily medical training to get good at developing and narrowing down the list in an efficient manner. The average patient doesn't have this background and sifts through the possibilities they read about without the benefit of experience as a filter. |
| Our passion for excellence and a warm friendly inviting atmosphere makes your experience in our office second to none. Our office is an extension of the University and an academic environment is created around your visit. |
| Thanks for visiting with us and I hope you enjoy the many informative pages to follow. Email-or-call me if you have any questions or are in need for additional information. |
