If you visited a doctor yesterday, you’re apt to receive a telephone call today around dinner time.  The hospital he’s affiliated with wants to know if you were pleased with him/ her.  Since your meal has been interrupted, you may not wish to participate in their survey at all.   Here’s a suggestion for hospitals and other health care providers:    Please stop annoying  health care phone surveys.

There are several questions they want you to answer.  But the most ridiculous one, to me, is: How happy are you with your doctor’s treatment?   Does anyone like having their nose cauterized?  Even if you give a positive answer,  you may change your mind a few days later when you get another nosebleed.  There is absolutely no way of judging the efficacy of a doctor’s treatment a day later.  Here’s why:

He could  have misdiagnosed your problem.  But you won’t  know that within twenty four hours.   Weeks or months later, if you’re still getting nosebleeds, having pain,  or losing weight , you will realize he didn’t really help you at all.  But now, it’s too late to complain.  He was cheerful and friendly and confident.  So you gave him an A plus or a 5 or whatever scoring system they use.  Now, you might want to change your survey answers but that ship has already sailed.

Here’s another one: Were we able to answer all your questions?  The doctor may have responded  when you asked something like, “how long will this last,”  Or “how did this happen?” but the answer  may have been vague or ambiguous..

One question they could ask– but never do–is this:  Do you think your doctor  ordered too many tests?  Many  tests may be important, but there’s no way of knowing.  And no health care facility is going to complain if a CT  Scan  costing the patient or his insurance about $3,000 was  unnecessary.   Which they often are. But when you’re frightened that you may have a serious disease, you  willingly go along with uncomfortable and expensive procedures.

Once, I had a very unpleasant experience during laparoscopic knee surgery. .  The  nurse was rude, stabbed me with a needle numerous times to draw blood, and complained my veins were too small.  The anesthesiologist gave me a total knee block instead of a partial, without asking my preference.   When I received a survey, I filled it out honestly and described my displeasure.   But I didn’t mail it, because I wanted to see if the procedure was successful. Which I wouldn’t know for several weeks.  It was successful—no more knee pain.  But the surgeon became angry when I voiced my complaints on our follow up visit.   Several  months later  I finally mailed in  that survey and didn’t change a thing.

Please, stop the senseless  health care telephone surveys. They are annoying, and in no way provide an accurate evaluation..  The way someone rates their  health care provider after twenty four hours may not reflect the quality of  care they received..