GEORGE KORDA: Lack of courtesy from health care workers hurts them – and costs money.
The employee behind the Knoxville pharmacy counter approached. “I’m here to pick up a prescription, please,” I said. The response: “What’s the date of birth?”
Behind the doctor’s office desk, the receptionist spoke while staring into the computer monitor: “I need your insurance card.”
At a local hospital’s surgical waiting area, the room was full of people waiting for their names to be called to complete their registration. A staff member emerged from an office every few minutes to shout out a last name: “James!” “Thompson!” “Clark!” When my name was called, it was with the same bark and tone that revealed what was behind it: “Come on, let’s go, I’ve got a lot of other people to deal with.”
In each instance, I paused, then moved a bit closer, and spoke quietly. I said, “I have a suggestion, for your benefit. I’m not angry, and I’m not going to complain to your boss. It’s to your advantage if you put a ‘please’ on the front or back end of what you just said. Otherwise, it’s a demand, or a command, and you probably really don’t want it to seem that way.”
A surprising number of people in health care who do so much good for so many seem to not recognize a basic fact of life: people wish to be treated with respect, not as a last name yelled out across a room, and not as someone receiving a command or demand to produce their name or insurance card, right now!
Everyone reading this has experienced the same thing, which frequently comes at a bad time for them. Usually, someone goes to a doctor or hospital because they have a health problem. They may be anxious, uncertain, shaken, apprehensive or scared to death. When the moment arrives for them to be seen, they aren’t reassured or uplifted when their last name is shouted as if they are a kid in a classroom being called down by the teacher.
Old sayings are old sayings for a reason, usually because there’s truth in them. An old saying, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,” is true, and throughout Knoxville – and Tennessee and the U.S. – a continuing epidemic of generally unintended discourtesy and disrespect is damaging health care organizations’ relationships with their patients and patients’ families – and costing those organizations money.
The InstaWife tells people that if she doesn’t see the doctor within 15 minutes she’s leaving — which gives them a black mark from the insurance company — and they’re always very nice to her.