You know who you are, or do you? I was fairly lucky. Over the years, I had relatively few mean patients. On the other hand, my staff had a fair number of mean patients.
Why the discrepancy? While it was easy to be mean to my staff, it was relatively hard to be mean to me. I never understood the logic behind pissing off my staff. My staff controlled the flow through the office. If you wanted to see me, you had to go through them. Yelling at them, insulting them and being overly demanding not only ruined their day, but ruined my day as well. Trust me, you want to see a healthy and happy physician.
I was trained in conflict management and never hesitated in pointing out inappropriate behavior. Disarming an angry patient was usually easy, but it was always time consuming. Wasting clinical time was always a pity. It’s no wonder that mean patients get worse care as half of the visit is spent resolving whatever is making you mean.
Click on the hyperlink to see a Zdogg video on this topic. I particularly like Zdogg’s advice on how to interact with your doc. Your doc’s office staff is there to help you. Be kind to them. Remember, if you don’t like how they do things, discuss your issues with the office manager or the doc. In my office, Renee, the insurance companies and I set the policies and my staff followed them.
