Prevalence of difficult encounters among clinic patients was 0.17; characteristics that increased difficulty included depression, chronic pain.

In nonpsychiatric settings, primary care physicians consider 17% of their patients as “difficult,” particularly those who ...

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 ...

As rewarding as being a healthcare provider is, there are also stressful moments, sometimes brought on by the need to deal ...

A systematic review of 45 studies found that physicians perceive one in six patient visits in non-psychiatric clinics as ...

Even if you have a five-star customer service practice, you'll still have patients who are deemed difficult. The difficult patient often upsets the staff, sends negative reverberations throughout the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...