Patient Communication - What to do when a patient says thank you

I have asked hundreds of doctors to tell me a story of their most recent ideal patient encounter.

You know the one.

That interaction during an otherwise busy day, where, at the end of the day, you said to yourself, "oh yeah, that's why I became a doctor in the first place."

97% of the time that feeling comes from
two words the patient or a family member said to you.

Doctor Patient Communication - how to stop "Oh, by the way ..." at the end of the visit and build patient satisfaction at the same time.

You know the visit ... 

You work hard helping your patient adjust the three meds she takes for diabetes and heart failure. You are 20 minutes into this visit, feeling like you have done a good job ... wondering when you will get the chance to write your note because now you are a full 30 minutes behind.

As you are neatly wrapping things up, your patient smiles at you and says, "Oh .. by the way doctor ..." and rummages around in her purse, eventually pulling out "THE LIST".

You sigh, your shoulders slump, it feels as if the wind has been knocked out of you. You didn't see it coming and you just fell into the Tiger Trap of "Oh .. by the way" at what should have been the end of this patient encounter. You would give anything to have been able to prevent this happening ... again.

In this post, let me show you how to fill this hole in your doctor patient communication skill set. When you learn to actually ask for the list up front, your energy and patient satisfaction ratings will go way up.

Three steps to stop , "Oh ... by the way"

Talk to Your Doctor so Your Doctor Will Listen

The most common complaint about physicians on the internet is, “They didn’t listen to me”.

You were sitting in the office and the doctor was physically present in the room, but they weren’t all there. Even worse is when the doctor doesn’t try to understand what you are going through. Sometimes it can seem like they didn’t even care. Let me give you a suggestion on how to talk to your doctor so your doctor will listen.