Patients Need to Take More Responsibility
I don't know if it is the population of patients that I see, but I have a problem with patients that do not take responsibility for their own health or knowledge of their health insurance.
I couldn't begin the number of times that I am asked if their insurance would cover certain medications or tests. When I instruct the patient to contact their insurance with their questions, they are upset and do not understand why I do not have the information. My psychic abilities are just not what they used to be.
Similarly, when I ask them to list their medications, or tell me about their other health problems, they become annoyed when I explain that even though I see them for headache or neuropathy or whatever the case is, that I need that information to better plan their care. Or when they bring me a pill box with medications neatly divided into days and dosing regimens, but they cannot tell me what the pills treat.
I saw a patient last week that had a weekly pillbox with dividers to take medications four times per day that was full to the brim with pills. She could only identify one pill out of the assortment. I spent time on the phone calling her pharmacy and her primary care provider to figure it out, which made me late with all patients for the remainder of the day.
And yes, I could have asked her to reschedule when I had the information needed, but she was having an acute problem that needed to be handled.
It's just frustrating to me, and I guess one more of the things I am going to have to figure out how to handle as a new NP.