Before you arrive

We live in a society where time is a precious commodity. There just never seem to be enough time to get everything done. This also applies to the office visit with us. Therefore, in an effort to help make the visit more efficient, yet pleasant, I have the following comments and suggestions.

1. I will always do my best to be on schedule for your visit; in the exam room by your appointment time. This is out of respect for you, your time planning, myself, and the rest of the patients scheduled to see me that day. Barring any seriously ill pt, who will need more time, or, less responsible, late patients, who may disrupt the schedule, I will be very much on time. Sometimes, in an effort to catch up, I will talk faster and be more "all business". If I am late, I will apologize and hope that you will understand why.

2. I encourage you to make appointments that you realistically can attend in earnest. This means allowing adequate time for travel (please consider traffic conditions), parking (sometimes a challenge), registration (also can be challenging at different times of the day), vitals, and being in the exam room by your appointment time. If you are not even at the registration window by the time of your appointment, you are considered late. In such an event, depending on the circumstances, you may be given a few options. Either you will be rushed in, if you have a minor problem; advised to wait until there is some "break" in the schedule, or until after the last appointment in the am or pm; redirected to another care provider in clinic who may be able to accommodate you sooner; or, reschedule.

3. If you have multiple issues to discuss, or if you have multiple medications, please make a list and bring that up once we get started. Again, due to time constraints, we may not be able to address everything. So, please be understanding, and prioritize the major problems which you would like to address, and I will try to get to as many of them as reasonably possible during our visit. Again, I would like to remind you of the time constraints, and would like your understanding if we do need to leave some issues unaddressed until later follow-up visits.

4. Regarding your health, I see you and I working together as a team to find the path that would be acceptable to us both. The only way this will work is when we have respect for one another's perspective. I will listen to your research and requests, but I will not "rubber stamp" everything you ask for. I will try to empathize with your concerns, and I will ask you to respect my professional experience and opinion. If you already have a set agenda and are not open to discussion or options, it may serve you best to pick another Primary Care Provider.

Disclaimer
If you think you have a MEDICAL OR PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY, CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY or go to the nearest hospital. DO NOT attempt to access emergency care through this web site. An emergency medical condition is a medical or psychiatric condition that manifests itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that you could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in any of the following: serious jeopardy to your health, serious impairment to your bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part. An emergency medical condition is also "active labor," which means a labor when there is inadequate time for safe transfer to a Plan hospital (or designated hospital) before delivery or if a transfer poses a threat to the health of the member or unborn child.

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