My Pet Peeves
July 24, 2008 – 5:00 am1. Patients who ask me to fill out paperwork allowing them to get a handicapped sticker when they don’t really need one.
2. Patients who ask me to fill out disability paperwork when they are obviously NOT disabled.
3. Parents who teach their children that earning disability income by “working the system” is an acceptable career choice.
4. Drug reps who enter my personal office without an invitation.
5. Patients who lie to me.
6. Parents who belittle their children verbally in front of others.
7. Patients who want to tell me how to do my job rather than have a two-way discussion about treatment options.
8. Health Insurance companies who flood me with paperwork in an effort to keep me from giving a patient a needed therapy or medication. I’ve never had a request denied, but I’ve lost hours of time on the phone and filling out pre-cert requests.
9. People who treat me differently because I’m a doctor. Get over it. I’m a regular guy.
10. The lack of frugality in the practice of medicine.
Any pet peeves of your own?
3 Responses to “My Pet Peeves”
Patients who try to pretend they are your personal friend so they have special access to you.
Coming back from a week off to an incredible pile of work.
- Nice list you have, by the way.
By Rob on Jul 25, 2008
1. Doctors who don’t know how to have a two-way conversation with patients. When it goes two-way, they think the patient is telling them how to to their job and then complain about it and insult patients.
2. Refusing to fill out forms such as disability papers. The specialist says it’s the primary care doctor’s job. The primary care doctors says it’s the specialist’s job. And then have the nerve to say to the patient something like that he’s not some secretary. Paperwork is a large part, of every white-collar professional job, up to 100% and often one-third. Doctors are not specially entitled to drop the ball.
3. Making a personal judgment that the patient isn’t really disabled. Even when the patient is actually functionally bedridden or housebound. Because they don’t believe in or agree with certain diagnoses. Even when the consult comes from a professor of medicine at a top medical school! Disability status and forms aren’t just for money. They are for being able to get your old job back when the patient does recover even if the leave is completely unpaid. There are only a very few cases where doctors eventually get what I mean here, and that is when they later on by chance end up getting the same condition that their patient had and then realize oh my, it is real and incredibly disabling.
4. Refusing to treat patients with certain diagnoses. This is an incredibly widespread practice. Because they think it is okay to make the call that some conditions, even though they have standard guidelines from the major medical authorities, aren’t real.
5. Doctors who lie. Even, or especially, in the more subtle ways. Including “I’d be happy to see you as a patient” when they are not because of #4 above.
By DD on Sep 2, 2008
DD.
I’d definitely agree with #1 and #5.
#2 - The physician who determines that the patient is disabled is the physician who should be filling out the paperwork. You’re right, physician’s should not shirk their paperwork responsibilities.
#3 and #4 do lie in a gray zone because not every diagnosis in medicine can be objectively established, and there are conflicting opinions amongst the “major medical authorities” about the diagnosis and management of many disease processes.
Physicians should take each patient seriously and should thoroughly evaluate the patient’s symptoms. If the patient does not agree with the physician’s opinion, then a second or third opinion should be sought.
Thanks for commenting!
By Jonathan Dee on Sep 3, 2008