Report: Most Patients 'Highly Satisfied' With Physicians

Physicians who think their patients don't follow their prescribed treatments and wait too long before making an appointment are far from alone in that view. In a survey of patients and primary care physicians published in the February Consumer Reports, 59 percent and 41 percent of primary care physicians, respectively, said these were their two biggest complaints about patients.

Other physician complaints included patients who are reluctant to talk about their symptoms (32 percent), those who request unnecessary tests (31 percent) and patients who request unnecessary prescriptions (28 percent). In addition, more than half of physicians surveyed said patient encounter times had been shortened in the past five years so that their practices could meet their target incomes; the same proportion said their days were packed with too many patients to provide the most effective care.

Consumer Reports gathered information for the survey in "Get Better Care From Your Doctor" from more than 25,000 respondents to the magazine's 2006 annual questionnaire on visiting doctors. The magazine also gathered information from nearly 14,000 online subscribers and 335 primary care physicians randomly selected from a national panel.

A majority of patients in the survey said they were "highly satisfied" with their physicians and that their conditions improved under their physicians' care. Patients also thought they were treated with respect (77 percent), that they were patiently listened to and understood (67 percent), that their doctors cared about their emotional well-being (64 percent), that they were encouraged to ask questions (57 percent), and that their doctors made an effort to get to know them (42 percent).

Patients did report problems in their interactions with physicians, however. A number of patients' problems dealt with communications issues. Two-thirds of patients said their physicians never discussed the cost of treatments and tests with them, and only 26 percent said their physicians had asked them about any emotional stress the patients' conditions were causing. Nine percent of respondents said they didn't get enough time with their physicians, 7 percent said test results weren't returned promptly and 6 percent said their doctors didn't respond promptly to their phone calls. Patients who dealt with uncommunicative physicians said they got better results when they brought a friend or relative along during the visit to ask questions.

Patients' other main complaints were that their physicians kept them waiting 30 minutes or longer (24 percent) and that they could not get an appointment within less than a week (19 percent).

The survey also found that prescription drugs were a hot topic for both doctors and patients. Twenty-two percent of physicians surveyed said they field questions based on televised drug ads "often" in a typical week, 78 percent said patients ask them "at least occasionally" to prescribe medication based on TV ads, and 67 percent said they "sometimes" comply with these requests. Conversely, 49 percent of patients who said they asked for a specific drug report that they left the office with a prescription for that drug.

However, although patients may have received the drugs they wanted, they weren't necessarily pleased with the treatment. Thirty-one percent of respondents said their physician didn't sufficiently explain side effects, and 9 percent reported that interactions with other drugs were not discussed.