“Reassure them that you value them,” he said. Under CARE MD, the idea of multiple visits is to help the patient develop coping strategies and stop overusing medical care.
Return visits should not be too frequent, Dr. Reed said, and they should be short. Physicians must remember to take care of themselves and other patients, he said, and not spend too much time with these patients. “We need to be compassionate,” he said, but “we don’t need to be compassionate in a way that we don’t have our sanity after clinic.”
As for CBT, Dr. Reed likes to suggest it in a way that doesn’t aggravate patients who are sensitive to the idea that their condition is all in their heads.
Physicians, he said, can say: “Wow, this is really affecting your life. You have 17 specialists working on you. You’ll continue to see them, I know. But I worry. I look at your chart, and we’re missing a whole area of treatment.”
He then mentions CBT. “Other providers may have told you about it,” he’ll say. “I’ve seen such good benefits with CBT, even with patients who were in motor vehicle accidents. It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from. This CBT seems to work.”
Ideally, he said, patients agree to try it.
Dr. Reed had no disclosures.