Screening Patients, Part 4: The Seekers

 This is Part 4 of a multi-part post series on various types of potential new patients to screen for, the characteristics of these types, and the importance of screening for them, if for no other reason than to have prior notice regarding what you (as a doctor) could be facing when working with them.

This post series is indeed intended for doctors, although I’m putting it out in the open, which means that anyone could read it.  Some of the people (doctors or patients alike) who come across this post series could start thinking to themselves, “what a judgmental prick.”  But I promise that’s not my intent, nor is it the attitude I take.

First-Year Learning Curve – Part 2

Wow, that last post started getting long – it didn’t feel like we’d learned that much in one year alone, but apparently we did–and more!  The rest follows below…

Learn to say no–fast.  This applies to salespeople requesting meetings, verifying those bogus “Yellow Pages” directory listings, and local vendors selling fruit out of the back of the pickup truck in your parking lot.

This also goes for patients who continually fail to show up, people who are repeatedly late, people who “forgot their wallet/credit card/checkbook”, or people who will “square up later” once their insurance is verified (many docs will tell a first-day patient not to worry about that day’s initial exam fees for now, we’ll just apply it to insurance – I say do not take this route!).