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Pro tip: a guy at the Riverside VA clinic told me to argue with my doctor once, and now I do it every visit
Last August I was sitting in the waiting room at the VA clinic in Riverside, California for my annual physical and this older guy next to me started talking. He had a folder full of notes and he told me he keeps a running list of every med he takes and every question he wants answered, and then he said the thing that stuck: 'If you don't push back on at least one thing, they're just gonna move you through in 11 minutes flat.' His visit before that, he timed it. 11 minutes. So I tried it. First appointment after, I asked my doc why she picked one blood pressure pill over another, and she actually stopped, pulled up my chart, and spent another 15 minutes going through it with me. Turns out my dose had been too high for like 8 months and nobody had looked at the numbers together. I get it, doctors are slammed and the system is stacked against a long visit, so your mileage may vary depending on where you go. But I stopped treating a checkup like a car wash where I just sit there and get pushed through. Has anyone else noticed that the one question you almost don't ask ends up being the one that matters?
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leo6122d ago
Man, I don't buy that pushing back is some magic trick. Half the time you ask a question and the doctor just nods, says "good question," and gives you the same spiel they give everyone. I've asked about my cholesterol meds twice and got two different non-answers. The 15 extra minutes you got sounds nice but that could just be one decent doctor, not proof that arguing works. The guy in the waiting room timing his visit might've had a doc who was already running behind and felt bad. Push back too hard and some of them write "difficult patient" in your file and you never get taken seriously again.
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