One in six patients is deemed to be dissatisfied and demanding. But to prevent difficult medical problems from being redefined as difficult patients, doctors need help I once cared for a patient for ...

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on . At least once a week, Emily L. Weis, MD, MS, says she has a challenging consult or patient interaction in her ...

When Elaine Benes on Seinfeld discovers she was labeled as a “difficult patient” in her medical chart, hilarity ensues when she tries to correct the record—and makes matters worse. But in real life, ...

Prevalence of difficult encounters among clinic patients was 0.17; characteristics that increased difficulty included depression, chronic pain. (HealthDay News) — Providers perceive 17 percent of ...

Physicians viewed 17% of patient encounters as difficult, according to a meta-analysis. Patient characteristics associated with perceived difficulty included personality disorders, depression, anxiety ...

Behavioral flags in electronic health records are designed to to help prevent violence against clinicians, but the flags might also prevent some patients from receiving full care, according to a ...

Some patients continually cancel their appointments, ignore your medical directions, treat your staff rudely, or send you harassing emails. Do you have to tolerate their behavior? No, these are all ...

Forty years ago, I had my most angry professional moment. It happened at a weekly meeting that included all our faculty, staff, and trainees—about 200 people. A young and arrogant, not very bright, ...

Have you ever felt like a “bad patient?” It might not be all in your head if you think a doctor is annoyed with you. When I began working in hospitals and clinics, I learned of an ominous ...

His visits to emergency departments always followed the same pattern. He would arrive in the afternoon complaining of chest pain. A bypass scar and a long-standing abnormal ECG pointed toward coronary ...