Why are patients not being treated properly?
By Dr Maharaja SivaSubramanian N
‘Why are patients not being treated properly?’ This was a recent google search phrase by which a viewer came to my blog. A good question, careful introspection of which will reveal the answer too. Patients are not treated properly. This is what a lot of people say.
Now, if you go to a shop and they don’t treat you properly, what do you do? Do you just keep silent, or express your displeasure to them? Well, in most of the cases, I am sure you will express your displeasure to them. Right. Then why not with Doctors and Health-care professionals? The following post will discuss on what may be the probable problems and how you can solve through them.
Doctors don’t see and treat patients properly which may be because of one of the following reasons;
- The treatment is felt to be adequate.
- The patient is not complaining.
- The Doctor has lots of patients to see.
- There is not enough time spent between the Doctor and the Patient during the consultation.
- There is little or no quality process followed in health-care especially treatment in most of the places.
- The consultation process in inadequate.
The treatment is felt to be adequate. Most of the time, the patient feels the treatment is enough. Once they start seeing even slight relief, they start feeling it is enough. And then the patient or the client may discontinue the treatment as such. It is one of the reasons as to why patients discontinue their treatment. Also, the Doctor, or the therapist, or the counsellor may just focus on the presenting complaint than the whole health of the patient or client as a result of which, they stop following up with the patient or client and do not promote them to be healthier.
The patient is not complaining. The Doctor or the therapist may feel the treatment is adequate. And they will continue to feel so, as long as the patient or the client complains as to what and why they feel the treatment is not proper.
I will share my own example, every consultation, I ask my clients, how can I improve the whole treatment process. And another place to improve is to see why patients or clients, do not follow up in terms of continuing the treatment, or making an enquiry and not fixing an appointment for treatment. I call them up all and listen to them as to why they are not continuing with the treatment or not continuing with fixing an appointment after initial enquiry.
These inputs help to improve the whole quality of the treatment I can offer and also provides greater scope and chance for the patients to complain if they have any.
The Doctor has lots of patients to see. Even Doctors, therapists and other health-care professionals like fitness trainers, counselors, etc, are professionals who need to earn and also at the same time meet the needs of their patients and clients. When a Doctor starts with 100 patients to see in four hours, he tries to rush through the patients rather than treating every patient properly.
There is not enough time spent between the Doctor and the Patient during the consultation. When there are lots of patients to see, the Doctor get to spend somewhere between 5 minutes to 15 minutes per patient which in most of the incidents is highly inadequate and counter-productive.
To overcome the above major pitfalls is why I started seeing patients and clients on prior appointments and also started slowly converting my practice to concierge medical practice. This way, I am making my whole service as a family doctor and therapist basis where whenever the patient or the client has a problem, majority of the time, they will have immediate access to me. And also each session, can be had for one to two hours minimum so that the health of the patient/client can be improved well in addition to providing symptom relief treatment. This is the same way as how Doctors are able to give better treatment to patients especially in developed countries which is still to take importance in developing countries like India.
There is little or no quality process followed in health-care especially treatment in most of the places. Every major organization in every industry has a quality framework. However, it is highly essential in health-care process especially in private clinics. This is a need which is evident internationally. In India, major hospitals have started it, however it might be long before private practitioners can implement it. Seeing this as a need to offer better treatment to my patients and clients, earlier in my practice itself, I started forming quality guidelines in adherence and also in most of the case above the international guidelines for quality framework for health-care practitioners which is followed globally.
The consultation process in inadequate. Each consultation must be as holistic and as comprehensive as possible. This is a context where both the health-care professional like the Doctor, the therapist, etc and also the patient, the client need to share the blame. Both of them have little or no time especially for health which is the most important factor of all in life. They both want to have brief sessions so that they can see other work which may seem to be more important than health. In such a scenario, the details of the patient or the client available will be highly inadequate and as such, the treatment will be of poor quality. See if it is possible to get one or two hour consultation sessions. It is worth the payment and at the same time, the patient and the client are requested to be well prepared for the consultation. They can use my comprehensive case sheet for consultation with any health-care practitioner.
Apart from the above reasons, there are some reasons why the treatment may not be proper and at the same time, the patient or the client may discontinure the treatment which I have discussed in an earlier article. I have also shared guidelines as to how a good consultation should be conducted for your benefit.
Be Healthier and Happier. Become Empowered and Enriched.
Dr Maharaja SivaSubramanian N
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Dr Maharaja SivaSubramanian N is India’s 1st Holistic Concierge Medicine Doctor specializing in Homoeopathy, Counselling, Hypnotherapy, Nutrition, Exercise Therapy. Contact Dr Maharaja N for your treatment needs.
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