4 reasons motivational interviewing is winning over physicians

For years, Joji Suzuki, M.D., was the only motivational interviewing (MI) trainer at Partners HealthCare, Boston's biggest hospital system. But more recently, healthcare providers from all specialties--from obstetrics to psychiatry--are clamoring to learn the communication technique that replaces lecturing with collaborative goal-setting. This means it now takes four or five trainers to dispense the education he used to do alone, Suzuki told CommonHealth.

There are several reasons MI, which has been used by some practitioners for decades, is finally gaining broader traction:

  • The medical community has recognized that chronic illness--frequently driven by lifestyle factors--is a more significant (and costly) problem for Americans than acute illness.
  • Value-based reimbursement systems hold healthcare providers more accountable for patient outcomes, making it essential for doctors to engage patients in practicing healthy habits outside of the office. While the Affordable Care Act may have kicked off the shift from fee-for-service reimbursement, the more recent Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act pushes quality even more aggressively to the forefront.
  • Mounting research shows that strong physician-patient relationships play a major role in patients' likelihood to follow recommendations.
  • The evidence base demonstrating MI is effective in helping patients change their behavior continues to expand.

As previous FiercePracticeManagement articles have described, MI puts more emphasis on physician listening than speaking. When physicians are better tuned in to patients' values and goals, CommonHealth added, doctors can more powerfully remind patients of why they want to make changes, such as quitting smoking, and help boost their confidence that they can do it.

"The big shift in the practice of MI for most practitioners is that you go from telling patients why they should change or how they could change to drawing out from the patient their own ideas about why change would be beneficial to them and about how they might be able to do it," Allan Zuckoff, Ph.D., of The University of Pittsburgh and an expert in the field, told CommonHealth.

To learn more:
- read the article from CommonHealth