dealing with complainers ... was RE: Follow up Appointment

[Guest guest]

I'd guess that is true with one caveat. Be sure the complaints aren't good

points that can point you toward ways to improve!!Also, consider that

many, many of us on this list are often enough in the 20% of " complainers "

by other people's criteria while we see ourselves as " speaking up " to

improve problems.So, it may help to lose obnoxious complainers, but you

may want to keep folks who give honest feedback (and hopefully they'll learn to do

it politely).Which brings up another point -- does our close relationship with

patients also help with establishing an open, comfortable environment where they can

" comment " or " notify " us about a problem rather than

" complaining " about it??? Any research on this? I'd guess the

answer is yes.TimOn

Tue, October 23, 2007 12:03 pm EDT, Locke's in Colorado wrote:

I've often thought about this concept that Joanne mentions - culling

the flock.

Much goes back to the 80/20 rule -- 80% of the complaints are from 20% of the patients.

If you can constantly whittle down that 20%, your life will be better.

Just a thought.

Locke

From:

[mailto: ] On Behalf Of joanne

hollandSent: Monday, October 22, 2007 7:56 PMTo: Subject: Re: Follow up

Appointment

From Drain,

The unpleasant taste of a patient who feels entitled to special

treatment, outside the norms of practice, really cuts into the joy of

practice. These folks will feel entitled in other ways as well. Best to get

them cut out of the practice early on, since you want to have a joyous place

to work.

I actually learned that from an old vet tech of mine: he used to

be a newspaper boy in his teen years, and he got all kinds of awards for

having the happiest and most satisfied customers. The way he told me he did

it was....ready for this?.... every time some one called up and complained

about his service (slightly damp paper edge, ten minutes late..whatever) he

came the next day and delivered the paper in pieces inside the front door of

the house...total paper flip just inside the front screen. The customer would

call and cancel, and he never had another complaint from that quarter. He

quite rightly figured out early that complainers are complainers and you might

as well get them off your list real soon.

Just my two cents worth.

Joanne Holland the Old MD from Drain, Oregon.Myria wrote:

Not in my opinion. Patients have to take some responsibility for themselves and clearly with a new practice it's not a case of not being available. Jim Bury net> wrote:

On a similar note--This unpleasant situation confronted me in my 1st week solo:I had pt request refills of his thyroid med past

date due for f/u this past summer, when I was still employed. Twice I refilled one month at a time and my nurse called him and told him of need for appointment. The 3rd month I denied the refill and repeated phone calls and faxes to my new office ensued. As I am newly now in private practice w/o staff I called him myself and again explained the need for

appt, and offered to schedule him. He declined, saying he was in the

process of getting established with a new Dr. I held firm and refused the

refill. Pretty stressful call but I really felt I was being

taken advantage of, and needed to " stop the madness " .Incidentally, the patient is a fairly wealthy guy.Did I do

the wrong thing?JimDr Levin net> wrote:

RE termination of pt

I've terminated about a dozen pts in 20 years, curiously, I've also done it IN PERSON with a written, summary note. I've asked at times for them to sign an acknowledgement, mostly

they sign, OR I bring in a support staffer to witness my words.

I've found the mailing the letter bit a problem -- pts often won't pick up the letter. A trick I've heard of is

to also mail a regular letter to the pt at the same time as the certified one, and as long as the regular letter doesn't come back, well, then they got it!

As far as the issue of the " plan " policy,

usually the " plan " will try to force you to reconcile. I find

this invasive, even if it's legal. If the pt is in an HMO type plan, we

send the letter or do this in person, then check with the plan who is

PCP about 2 weeks prior. If no change, then we call the plan, show them

the letter, and have THEM facilitate the pt's changing.

Several pts in this type of circumstance have been rude to staff on repetitive occasions, progressively hard to deal with. These folks there is NO possibility of " healing the rift "

so I don't give the plan the opportunity to try.

I've also had an abusive pt rip a chart out of my hand -- I threw him out (Medicaid pt drug seeking HMO) and called his plan immediately telling them we would have nothing to do with him. Another pt threatened that he'd " get me " if I didn't write a psych med right away -- he actually was a prison guard. Over the objections of my office manager, we called the police and they confronted him. I also made the HMO plan (had to push this up the chain too) contact pt to be sure he didn't come back or contact us in ANY way -- curiously, they told pt he had to go to ER for ANY emergency care in that instance while getting a new primary.

Tough stuff, usually pts though get the idea, even the nonpayors, and don't come back. Have 2 of these right now working through the system.

Matt in western PA

__________________________________________________Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam

protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

__________________________________________________