The High Cost of Not Listening to Patients.

This article reminds me of my days as a medical librarian.
If I did not carefully listen to a patron (customer) or ask the right questions, I gave the person the wrong information!

Minutes spent in listening and asking focused questions often saved an hour (or more!) of fruitless searching.

So, when I talk with a health care practitioner, I am mindful to give as much relevant information as possible to so the proper diagnosis and treatment can be given!

It is also necessary that we all do whatever we can so that health care practitioners are given the time they need to listen to patients.
Ultimately this will result in lower health care costs overall.

 

From the 18 January 2013 post at The Health Care Blog

Before we can understand the high cost of not listening, we need to examine in detail the diagnostic process. I am limiting my discussion to patients with chronic or recurring symptoms lasting several months. I am not discussing acute illnesses. They fall into completely different category.

At the front line of medical care, at the first contact between a patient and a doctor, the patient describes physical symptom. Whatever the real underlying cause, a physical symptom is the required ticket to see a physician. The physician, on first contact, has no idea what the underlying nature of the patient’s chronic complaint really is.  At the risk of oversimplifying, there are five broad categories of the causes for complaints.

These are:

1. There is a definable medical disease in one or more organs.

2. There is no definable medical disease but the patient is in contact with an unknown toxic substance causing the symptom (inhaled, ingested, or from skin contact).

3. The patient is in a stressful or toxic relationship at home or work producing physical symptoms or even a definable medical disease. (“What the mind cannot process is relegated to the body.” Dr. William Mundy, psychiatrist, personal communication. )

4. The patient or a companion is inflicting harm. Here, there are several categories:…

 

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5. There is no definable medical disease but the patient has assumed a chronic illness role in life with multiple symptoms (i.e. hypochondriasis).

Psychosomatic Illness

6. There is a sixth category; patients with psychosomatic disorders. Time and space does not permit a full discussion of this important and very common set of disorders. I suspect they represent more than fifty percent of patients seeking primary medical care. The book“The Divided Mind” explains and defines these disorders and the successful treatment applied to thousands of patients at NYU by Dr. Sorno and his colleagues. At present the medical profession denies the existence of this category. The epidemic emergence of pain clinics comes from lack of knowledge about psychosomatic disorders and their proper treatment.

Of course, the patient can have any of these, and also be suffering from a definable medical disease.

But my experience in primary care over the past 55 years — combined with studies in the medical literature —suggest that between 30 and 40 percent of first contact  primary care visits are stress related or are psychological in nature (#3 and #6  in above list).

It should be obvious that the only way to sort out these causes of symptoms requires very careful listening to the narrative of the patient’s life. Some of these causes can be determined only by listening…..

 

Read the entire article here