The Lack Of Patient-Centered Communication Skills By Physicians in Your Provider Network Will Limit Your PCMH & ACO Performance

 

Is The CEO Of The Cleveland Clinic Serious When He Says “No More Passive Patients”?

If a recent blog post by the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic is representative of how health care executives (and physicians) really think about patients – aka consumers –aka people like you and me…we are all in big trouble.  In it Delos Cosgrove, MD, talks about how under health care reform there will be “No more passive patients.”

Here’s my a quote from the post by Delos Cosgrove, MD:

“For too long, healthcare has been something that was done to you. Now it’s going to be something you do for yourself in partnership with your doctor and care giving team. You’ll need to monitor your food input, get exercise, and avoid tobacco. ”

Let’s examine what’s disturbing about comments like this particularly when made by high-profile leaders like Dr. Cosgrove.

First, this statement is factually inaccurate.  Here’s why.  82% of US adults visit their PCP every year at least once a year (often more) for their health.   Think about the trip to the doctor’s office from the patient’s perspective… 1) chances are they have discussed their health problem or concern with family members or friends, 2) they may well have looked up information on their condition to see if it merits a doctor’s visit, 3) they make the appointment, 4) they show up for the appointment and 5) wait in the waiting and exam room thinking about the questions they want to ask their physician.

What about any of this suggests patient passivity?

Second, this statement misrepresents the true nature of the patient passivity of which Dr. Cosgrove speaks.  You see patients (aka people) are socialized by physicians beginning in childhood visits with Mom to the pediatrician to assume a passive sick role.  We are supposed to be passive! Otherwise the doctors gets irritated and ignores or dismisses what we have to say.  While it’s true that patients (even the most empowered among us) ask very few important questions during the typical office exam…the reason isn’t that we are passive.  Rather it’s because we don’t want to be too assertive, confrontational, and argumentative or are simply afraid.

Rather that blaming patients for not being more engaged…why don’t doctors try and become more engaging (e.g., patient-centered) to patients?

Third, patient non-adherence is often not the patients fault…but rather the result of poor communications on the clinician’s part. One recent study found that 20% of medication non-adherence is the direct result of poor physician communication with patients. Poor patient communication skills top the list of complaints people have with their doctor. Poor patient communication is also the leading cause of medical errors, non-adherence and poor patient experiences.

Fourth, how exactly are patients going to learn all the skills necessary to “do everything” for themselves?  The work of Lorig et al. has shown that simply providing patients with information – the “what” of self care – is not enough to change patient health behavior.  Patients also need and want to develop the skills and self efficacy for self care management – the “how” of self care.   Right now for example clinicians spend on average <50 seconds teaching patients how to take a new medication…and we wonder why patients are non-adherent.

Given the poor patient communication skills of physicians today how exactly are patients supposed to learn how to do it all themselves?

Finally, the Dr. Cosgrove reminds us of the kind of paternalistic, physician-directed thinking and communications which has gotten the health care industry into the mess it’s in.

The following statement says it all:

“If your doctor prescribes a medication, preventive strategy, or course of treatment, you’ll want to follow it.”

What if I don’t want the medication or don’t believe it will help me? Why should I be forced to do something I don’t want to do? Will you drop me as a patient?
What happened to the IHI’s Triple Aims?  What about the need to be more patient-centered as called for in Crossing the Quality Chasm and the ACA reform legislation?

I am sorry if I seem to come down hard on Dr. Cosgrove. But my original point remains…too many health care leaders still think and talk like this.  While they may “talk the talk”…employees, patients and physicians all see how such leaders “walk the talk.“  And as Cosgorove’s comments suggest we have a long, long way to go.

I would like to extend an invitation to Dr. Cosgrove and the physicians at the Cleveland Clinic to see just how “patient-centered” their communication skills really are by participating in the Adopt One! Challenge.   You will not only be able to assess the quality of your team’s patient communication skills but also see how their skills compare to industry best practices.

All physicians are invited to participate in the Adopt One! Challenge.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Patient Non-Adherence (Like Engagement) Is A Physician-Patient Communication Challenge – Not A Health Information Technology Challenge

Have you noticed all the articles in the health care press lately touting health information technologies’ ability to increase patient medication adherence?  Smart phone-based apps, Smart pill bottles and Patient Portals are all about trying to get patients to do something (take a medication) which some physician somewhere has deemed to be the right thing for the patient to do.   Some would call this process of generating adherence patient engagement.

Chalk these high-tech patient reminder solutions up to just another well-intentioned but misguided attempt by HIT vendors at patient engagement…one not likely to be met with much long-term success.  Sorry folks.

The fact is that these high-tech solutions, like physicians, still talk about non-adherence as if it is all the patient’s fault.  Come on …you have to admit that’s not a very engaging “message.”   You know…patients don’t fill (refill their prescriptions), patient don’t take their meds are directed, patient forget, and so on.  According to people much smarter than I am about such things, this perspective is outdated.

Many researchers now argue that patient non-adherence is more often the result of ineffective patient communication skills and not “disengaged, lazy or forgetful patients.”  One study showed that 19% of patient non-adherence was attributable to poor physician communication with patients.

It is also worth noting that there are two types of patient non-adherence – intention and unintentional…only one of which is addressed by these high-tech solutions.   In this post I want to focus on the intentionally non-adherent patients (the one not addressed by the reminders) .  After all, only bad or stupid people would intentionally go against something that clearly is their best interest…right?

Wrong.  As it turns out there are lots of legitimate reasons (from the patient’s perspective) for non-adherence.

Here are the main reasons cited in the literature:

• The patient doesn’t agree with the diagnosis necessitating the prescription
• The patient believes the diagnosis but doesn’t think the diagnosis is serious enough to merit taking a new medication prescription
• The patient doesn’t believe in taking medications
• The patient believes the risks associated with the medication outweigh the benefits
• The patient doesn’t believe the medication will work
• The patient can’t afford the medication

Think about your recent physician visits, where your clinician prescribed a new medication.  I’ll bet one or two of the above “reservations” flitted across your mind.  I’ll also bet that your provider never once asked how you felt about taking the prescribed medication.  I’ll even go out on a limb and bet that most of you never mentioned your reservations to your provider either.

Don’t believe me?  Then consider this factoid.  When prescribing a new medication, the average primary care physician spends less than 50 seconds teaching (too strong a word) patient about the medication, e.g. why they need it, how to take it, how much to take, when to take it, indications and contraindications, when to stop and what to do when you stop.  That’s not much time for the physician to say everything that needs to be said (which doesn’t happen).  Nor does it leave time for the patient to say much.

Since most patients are reluctant to interrupt or contradict their clinician, many if not most of the concerns patients have about taking the new medications are never voiced.  Rather, patients just go home and never fill the prescript.

So now help me understand how my patient portal or smart phone app can engage me by implicitly blaming me for not taking my medications.  Or motive me to take my medications  when I don’t believe that they are not necessary or that they may be worse for me than the problem they are intended to solve.

Patient adherence is much more likely to occur when the patient and clinician agree on the basics, e.g., the diagnosis and treatment.  That requires a conversation or two or three.  The goal of effective clinician-patient communication is to resolve such disagreements.  And that is why the solution to patient non-adherence lies in developing the patient-centered communication skills of clinicians…not in trying to cajole patients into using some new app or patient portal that totally ignores their concerns and beliefs.

All together now…patient adherence (and engagement) are a physician-patient communication challenge…not an HIT challenge.

That’s what I think. What’s your opinion?

Note:  Later this Fall, Mind the Gap will be announcing the Adopt One! Challenge TM. for physicians and their care teams.  The goal of the challenge is to encourage physicians and their care teams to adopt one new patient-centered communication skill within 2014. 

Sign-up to learn more about this one-of-a-kind “Challenge”:

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Sources:

Koenig, C. J. (2011). Patient Resistance as A in Treatment Decisions. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 72(7), 1105-14.Johnson, J, et al. (2005) Factors Associated with Medication Nonadherence in Patients With COPD. Chest. 128(5).

Wilson, I. et al. (2007). Physician – Patient Communication About Prescription Medication Nonadherence: A 50-State Study of America’s Seniors. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 22(1), 6-12

Johnson, J, et al. (2005) Factors Associated with Medication Nonadherence in Patients With COPD. Chest. 128(5).

Zolnierek, H. et al. (2009) Physician Communication and Patient Adherence to Treatment: A Meta-Analysis. Medical Care. 47(8), 826-834.

Sarkar, U., et al. (2011). Patient-Physicians’ Information Exchange in Outpatient Cardiac Care: Time for a Heart to Heart? Patient Education and Counseling, 85(2), 173-9.

Ten Reasons Why Hospitals, Health Plans And Medical Groups Should Invest In Developing Their Physicians’ Patient-Centered Communication Skills

“Patients are, in fact, overly patient; they put up with unnecessary discomforts and grant their doctors the benefit of every doubt, until deficiencies in care are too manifest to be overlooked.  Generally speaking, one can assume that the quality of care is, actually, worse than surveys of patient satisfaction would seem to show.  Patients need to be taught to be less patient, more critical, more assertive.”

Avedis Donabedian, MD.   Father of Health Care Quality

It’s no secret that poor communication tops the list of patient complaints about their physicians.  Who hasn’t heard a physician or an enabling administrator say that they “don’t have time to talk to patients” or that they “don’t get paid for talking to patients.”  While understandable, that kind of a response seems to demean the interpersonal exchange which is the very essence of the physician-patient relationship.

Contrary to what most people think, the quality of a physician’s patient communication skills impacts far more than the patient experience.   The quality of your physicians’ patient communication skills drives the quality of the patient’s diagnosis, treatment, outcome and cost.   And that my friends should get your attention.

If 30+ years of evidence is to be believed, there is a practicable solution to today’s physician-patient communication funk everyone finds themselves in.   It’s called patient-centered communications

Here are 10 evidence-based reasons why providers and payers should go beyond useless global measures of patient communication and give serious thought to assessing and improving their physicians’ patient-centered communication skills.

1.  Improve visit productivity – collaborative setting of a visit agenda and negotiation of visit expectations by patient and physician have been show as a way to reduce the “oh by the way” comments at the end of the visit and to allow more to be accomplished often in less time.  1
2. Improve the patient experience – the duration of the visit is not nearly as important to patients as the quality of time spent face-to-face with the physician.  Visits in which the physician invites patient participation and makes the patient feel heard and understood produce higher satisfaction and experience scores. 1
3. Increase patient engagement – patients come to physicians for a reason(s).  They are already engaged otherwise they wouldn’t be there.  Patient-centered physicians solicit the patient’s reasons for the visit, their ideas about what’s wrong and their thoughts regarding what they want the physician to do.   It helps eliminate guessing and unfulfilled patient expectations.
4. Improve patient adherence –  “Patient beliefs about medication were more powerful predictors of adherence than their clinical and socio-demographic factors, accounting for 19% of the explained variance in adherence. ”  By understanding where the patient is coming from physicians can avoid wasting time recommending treatments which patients will not adhere to, i.e., prescribing a new Rx when patient would prefer life style modifications. 2
5. Fewer requests for expensive tests – strong physician-patient relationships characterized by effective patient-centered communication skills report higher levels of patient trust in the doctor and lower levels of patient requests for expensive diagnostic tests commonly found in physician-patient relationships reporting lower levels of patient trust in physician. 3
6. Fewer ER visits and hospital readmissions – patients in strong patient-centered physician relationships are more likely to engage in the kinds of self care management behaviors which preclude ER visits and rehospitalizations.  3
7. Better patient outcomes – Chronic disease patients of physicians with strong patient-centered communication skills are consistently found in studies to report better A1C scores, better controlled hypertension and asthma, and so on. 4
8. Reduce malpractice risk – The majority of malpractice claims involve some form of communication breakdown between physician and patient.   Patient-centered physician-patient relationships are characterized by a high degree of relevant and timely information exchange which greatly reduces the risk of physician-patient communication errors. 5
9. Reduce disparities in care – The evidence shows that physicians tend to be more paternalistic and directive when talking with ethnic patients, including sharing less information, compared to when communicating with white patients. 6
10. Increased reimbursement – CMS and many commercial payers now offer incentive payments for outcomes linked to patient-centered communications. i.e., patient experience, reduced ER visits and hospital readmissions, use of generic vs. brand drugs, lower levels of expensive diagnostic tests, etc.

Note:  Later this Summer, Mind the Gap will be organizing a communication challenge called Adopt One! TM.   The goal of the event will be to challenge physicians and their care teams to adopt one new patient-centered communication skill within the next 12 months.

As part of the Adopt One! Challenge physicians and their care teams will have the opportunity to sign up for a free evaluation of their patient-centered communication skills, have their skills benchmarked against best practices and  receive a report detailing their findings and recommended steps for improvement. 

 Sources:

1        Dugdale, D. C., Epstein, R., & Pantilat, S. Z.  Time and the patient-physician relationship. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 14 Suppl 1, S34-40.  1999.

2       Horne, R., & Weinman, J.  Patients’ beliefs about prescribed medicines and their role in adherence to treatment in chronic physical illness.  Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Vol. 47, No. 6, pp. 555–567, 1999.

3        Thom, D. H., Hall, M. a., & Pawlson, L. G. (2004). Measuring Patients’ Trust In Physicians When Assessing Quality Of Care. Health Affairs, 23(4), 124-132.

4       Stewart, M. . et al. (2000). The Impact of Patient-Centered Care on Outcomes. Journal of Family Practice, 49(No. 9), 1-9.

5        Levinson, W., Roter, D. L., Mullooly, J. P., Dull, V. T., & Frankel, R. M. (1997). Physician-patient communication. The relationship with malpractice claims among primary care physicians and surgeons. JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association, 277(7), 553-9.

6       Johnson, R. L., Roter, D., Powe, N. R., & Cooper, L. a. (2004). Patient race/ethnicity and quality of patient-physician communication during medical visits. American journal of public health, 94(12), 2084-90.

Shared Decision Making – Not Ready For Prime Time – Nor Evidently Is Patient-Centered Care

When it comes to delivering truly patient-centered care…how are providers supposed to know when they have “arrived”?   According to Michael Berry, MD, President of the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation, providers will know they have achieved the “pinnacle of patient-centered care” when they routinely engage their patients in shared decision-making (SDM).

In theory, shared decision-making (aka collaborative decision-making) is what is supposed to happen between patients and their doctors when faced with a difficult choice.  Clinicians engaging in shared decision-making would provide patients with information pertaining to the need for the treatment, the available options, as well as the benefits and risks.  But patient-centered clinicians would also do something else. They would attempt to work with patients to arrive at a decision they could both live with.  A kind of “shared mind” that takes into consideration their clinical perspective as well as the patient’s perspective – their preferences, needs, and values (which ideally have been captured over the course of the patient-provider relationship).

The Problem Is That Most Physicians Don’t Really Engage Patients In Either Shared Decision Making  

 A 2003 study surveyed U.S. physicians (N=1,217) preferences and actual practices regarding shared decision-making.  Table 1 presents a summary of findings from this study.

Table 1

Decision Making Style	What Physicians Preferred	What Physicians Actually Do
Shared decision-making	58%	37%
Physician-dominant decision-making	28%	43%
No patient involvement	9%	13%
Patient dominant decision-making	5%	7%

While most physicians in the study may philosophically believe in and prefer shared decision-making…as this data indicates that is not what most physicians in the study reported actually doing.  In fact, 56% of physicians reported that they actually engaged in decision-making that was physician-dominated (with some patient involvement) or totally physician-dominated decision-making behavior (absent any patient involvement).

The Barriers To Shared Decision Making?

The barriers to SDM include the usual suspects:

•  Lack of time during the visit
• Not having access to the right decision support aids tools and training their use
• Physician attitudes about patient’s willingness to engage in shared decision-making
• Provider reliance upon a physician-directed (versus patient-centered) style of communicating with patients

The Take Away – Why Shared Decision Making Matters

•  SDM is the right thing to do – the benefits associated with SDM include better outcomes, lower utilization and cost, lower malpractice risk and enhanced patient trust and satisfaction

•  SDM is a great way to be engaging to patients – it is a way to get patients involved in their care in a meaningful way they can relate to.

• To be eligible to participate in Medicare’s Shared Savings Program, Accountable Care Organizations must implement processes to promote patient engagement, including shared decision-making.

As readers of Mind the Gap know, I am a proponent of the adoption of patient-centered communication by providers, beginning with primary care.   Shared decision-making has rightly been identified as a leading indicator when it comes to assessing the “patient-centeredness’ of a physician practice.   So before you go around telling everyone how patient-centered your provider teams are first do a reality check.  Because if you aren’t regularly engaging your patients in shared decision making you are not there yet.

That’s my opinion…what’s your?

Sources:

Heisler, M. et al. Physicians’ participatory decision-making and quality of diabetes care processes and outcomes: results from the triad study. Chronic Illness. 2009 Sep;5(3):165-76

Street, R. et al  The importance of communication in collaborative decision making: facilitating shared mind and the management of uncertainty. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 17 (2011) 579–584.

Frosch, D., et al. An Effort To Spread Decision Aids In Five California Primary Care Practices Yielded Low Distribution, Highlighting Hurdles. Health Affairs. 32, no.2 (2013):311-320.