The odds are mounting that you will be on the receiving end of a medical mistake resulting from your doctor’s office visit. If you want to weigh the odds, consider this: For every eight people that are admitted to the hospital, nearly 30 times that number visit a physician’s office. The average family physician sees 100 patients every week spending about seven minutes to listen, examine, diagnose and treat you. Two out of every three office visits result in giving patients pills and four out of ten order some type of diagnostic test (prescription mistakes and testing slip-ups are the leading causes of medical errors in doctor’s offices).
It’s not just the likelihood that you’ll be visiting a doctor’s office that places you at risk: there are not enough primary care physicians, appointments are getting shorter, and patients are seeing more and more doctors that specialize in body parts with no one coordinating their care. Most of the new safety practices and technology to prevent medical errors have zeroed in on the hospital setting not the doctor’s office.
Just a few weeks ago, a new report sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality along with the American Academy of Family Physicians uncovered just high how the odds are for medical errors at the doctor’s office. Here is what they found from 243 clinicians who reported close to 1,000 errors in a 32-week period: nearly one out of every five mistakes caused some type of physical or emotional harm to the patient of which half caused pain and suffering. The vast majority of cases (80 percent) lead to extra time and expense but did not adversely affect the patient’s health. Most mistakes were made in the process of ordering, performing and reporting test results. For example, the wrong tests were ordered, misfiled, lost, misinterpreted, not done properly or no one told the physician and/or patient the results.
So, if you want to reduce your odds, take these steps:
1. When your doctor orders a test (e.g. blood, x-ray, EKG) always ask what is
the name of the test, what is it for and when will you receive the results
and how?
2. Never accept, “If you don’t hear from us, then assume everything is okay” from
your doctor or nurse. Tell them you want to know the results whether it is normal
or abnormal.
3. If you have not heard from your doctor’s office on the test results when he or
she said they should be done, call and ask for the results.
4. Always bring a current list of your medications or better yet, bring the pill
bottles of all the current medications you are taking to the doctor’s office to
prevent prescription errors.
5. Ask for a copy of your test results and check them against what the doctor told
you he ordered.
6. Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor about the results and if you are making major
decisions on cancer treatment or surgery based on test results, ask your doctor
about having another pathologist or radiologist look at your tests for a second
opinion.
Medical care these days is more complex and overburdened. Despite all of this, most of the time your doctor is treating you mistake-free but it doesn’t hurt to become a safety-check partner, so you both can beat the odds.
YOUR TURN
Do you have a doctor's office mistake you want to share? Or a tip on how to prevent one? Click on the Post a Comment link below.
Want to know more? Check out the following articles and reports:
"Testing Process Errors and their Harms and Consequences Reported from Family Medicine Practices" by J. Hackner et al, Quality and Safety in Health Care 2008; 17:194-200.
"Test-Related Errors Uncovered in Family Practice Clinics," John Gever, Med Page Today, August 14, 2008.
"Danger at Your Doctor's Office" by Lorie A. Parch at Health.com
"Patient Safety in the Physician Office Setting" by Nancy C. Elder, MD, MPH
