"Doctors have one eye on the patient and one eye on the clock," David J. Rothman, who studies the history of medicine at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, told Kaiser Health News for a story about the ubiquitous 15-minute office visit.
But despite physicians' and patients' increased dissatisfaction with rushed appointments, studies show that the length of doctors' visits has actually increased slightly since the rise of managed care in the 1990s. According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the mean time patients spent with physicians across specialties was 18.9 minutes in 2000, up from 16.3 minutes in 1992.
Patients' perception of time spent with their doctors, for which they often wait weeks or months, varies greatly depending on how physicians manage the visit, the article noted. "People feel dissatisfied when they don't get a chance to say what they have to say," Alex Lickerman, M.D., an internist who has taught medical students at University of Chicago and is director of the university's Student Health and Counseling Services, told KHN.
A key element of productive face time with patients, therefore, is making sure physicians truly listen to patients. It may be necessary in today's time-crunched environment to extend some of this dialogue beyond the actual visit time via various forms of technology, but keep in mind that this solution works only if practices follow-up on the information they receive.
Practices must also work to structure their visits to optimize patient-physician time, such as by having patients complete paperwork at home and preparing relevant patient-education materials in advance.
"I will sometimes boast that I can make people feel they 'got their money's worth' in five minutes," Lickerman said. "It's not the actual time or lack of time people are complaining about--it's how that time felt."
To learn more:
- read the article
- here's the data (.pdf)