Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Why don't unhappy patients speak up ?

I still cannot understand why patients put up with terrible customer service in the healthcare industry. If you had to wait 70 minutes at a restaurant without an apology or explanation, would you stew in silence ? If not, then why do you put up with such atrocious behaviour when the doctor does it ? And if you do put up with it, then it seems to me that you deserve it ! Doctors make patients wait because patients are willing to wait !

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:09 AM

    To Dr. Malpani:

    I think perhaps your particular specialty (IVF) self-selects patients with money, opportunity and desire for successful health outcomes. It seems that it would be much easier for someone like your to schedule patients with adequate time to complete the mandated history and PE AND still have time left over to pamper your patients; many if not all of them may be private or self-pay.

    Those of us in the trenches doing Primary Care should also have such luxury of time and selection of the most attractive patients only! My field is Geriatrics, which is both highly labor and time intensive and is rewarded by an allowable reimbursement from Medicare which you would likely reject out of hand as ludicrous.

    I only hope that you remember your current hubris when you are older, more frail and infirm and depending upon an overworked, underpaid physician or PA to provide your "concierge" medical care. Please let me know how that all works out for you. Since my income is entirely from Medicare/MediCal, I'll still be in practice; there will be no option to retire on my income.

    Martha J Lynch, BS, PA-C
    Board-Certified Physician Assistant
    Respectful HealthCare, Founder
    Geriatric House Call Program
    Aging Homebound Adults & Disabled
    San Diego, CA.

    ReplyDelete

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