 I have to know what's going on with you. And sometimes it can take me 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30, 40 minutes maybe to read your chart and everything that's been going on with you since you were last seen. So if you're waiting for a long time, sometimes that's the reason. In fact, I'd say that's probably most commonly the reason that you're waiting for a long time is because I'm just trying to get a good idea of what's going on with you. But overall, unless there's something really new going on with you, something that's been bothering you, something that I don't know about yet, that interaction is probably gonna be pretty quick. And if I know what I'm doing, that interaction might be as short as like five minutes. Good morning. My name is Boris. I'm a board certified physician assistant working in medically supervised weight loss and outpatient internal medicine, which is basically primary care, but for somewhat more complicated patients usually. In today's video, the information is geared more towards those of you who are patients and less for those of you that are providers like myself because you guys know how it is. But those of you who are patients, so go to your doctor and you're wondering why am I waiting for so long? Why have I been sitting here for an hour? My appointment was at noon and it's like 1.15 and they still haven't called me back. Why is this taking so long? And then when the doctor or the physician assistant or nurse practitioner, whatever provider, when they come in, they come in for like five minutes, just like rattle off a couple of things, mumble a little bit at me for like five minutes and maybe show me a couple of things on the computer if they're nice. If they're not, they literally just talk for like five minutes and then they leave. And that's it, that's what I was waiting for. Like what is going on? Why am I waiting so long just to be seen for five minutes? Well, as a provider, especially as a brand new provider, and today is actually my first solo shift. So right now I'm driving to get some lunch so I just saw my first few patients on my own after training for a couple of months with the doctor that hired me. So today's my first solo shift. I'm actually doing this all by myself and so the full weight of the responsibility and everything is on me and I feel it and I can now finally tell you from kind of the behind the scenes, what is going on, why all of this is going on. Why sometimes what I just described to you where you're waiting for a long time, sometimes even an hour or even more, why that's happening and then I come in there, I see you for like five minutes and I leave. Why that's going on, why that happens and why it's probably not quite as bad as you think it is. But the first thing I wanna say is if you're waiting for an hour or more, I mean, that's really not cool. I definitely do empathize. I mean, having been a patient myself, just because I'm a provider doesn't mean I don't have my own primary care provider and you know, specialty providers and stuff. So I've been a patient. I have waited for an hour. It is really annoying. I definitely understand and anyone that I've kept waiting for a long time or I keep waiting for a long time in the future, my apologies. Like legitimately, I'm sorry. I definitely don't mean to keep people waiting. I go as fast as I can while keeping people safe. You can't go too fast. You don't wanna miss anything. You gotta keep your patients safe even if sometimes it takes a little bit longer. So again, it's not really acceptable to keep you waiting as long as that, an hour or even more. But unfortunately, sometimes it just does happen. Sometimes a patient encounter goes longer than it should. Sometimes you find something or they have complaints that are new or you have to send someone to the hospital or even like get an emergency EKG, send them by ambulance, put oxygen on them. Like you never know, sometimes there's just crazy stuff that happens that does take a lot longer than your standard, you know, 15 minutes or 30 minutes that you allow yourself for a patient. Sometimes you might be with a patient for an hour and a half and things just happen. But that's rare. That's the rare sign of things. Most commonly, the reason you're kept waiting with a provider, especially a brand new provider like me who doesn't know you. So if you're a new patient or there happens to be a new provider in the office like me who has not seen you before, who has not seen you for years, who is not very familiar with your chart and everything going on with you and where you've been the past few months, your blood work, your imaging, your specialty consults, all the stuff that's going on with you as a new patient or a new provider. Before I even go into the room and see you for even one minute before I even say hi to you, I have to read all of that. And sometimes it's tons and tons of documents. Like some of these documents can be 13, 14, 30, 40 pages. If you were at the hospital, for instance, there's a lot to read. Now we don't always thoroughly read every single page but we know what to look for. We want to get at least a very good general idea of what's going on with you, what's going on with your health, what's going on with your care, what's going on with your lab work, your imaging, what specialty consults, what procedures have you had recently? Just what is everything going on with you? And before I even get in the room with you, I essentially know everything that's going on and I essentially know everything that I'm going to do. Now of course I do have to ask you what's going on, how you're feeling, is there anything new going on? How do you feel about your diagnoses? What is your level of understanding with everything that's going on? Of course I have to do the physical exam to see if there's any physical findings to see if anything's new, if anything is pertinent. There is a point to me actually going in there and talking to you, but unless it's like a detailed physical exam, your annual exam, where there's really just that much going on with you, more than likely, that interaction does not have to be very long. I just have to ask you my list of very specific questions that I've already thought of and already cultivated, ask you if there's anything new going on with you that you really need to tell me and then do whatever physical exam is appropriate in order to solidify my understanding of what's going on with you and then what I'm actually going to do for you as your plan. Of course I'm going to explain the care plan to see if you need to get any orders done, if you need to go see any other providers, if you need to do anything besides just seeing me and I'm going to make sure that you express understanding and I'm going to explain it in as many ways and as many times as it takes for you to understand that. So that's part of our interaction as well. But overall, unless there's something really new going on with you, something that's been bothering you, something that I don't know about yet, that interaction is probably going to be pretty quick. And if I know what I'm doing, that interaction might be as short as like five minutes. Now as a specialist, that might be different and I'm not a specialist. I'm a primary care provider. So as a primary care provider, I am responsible for quarterbacking literally all of that. Every single person that you see, your cardiologist, your pulmonologist, your urologist, your gastroenterologist, all of your screening, osteoporosis, colon cancer, prostate cancer, blood pressure, cholesterol, all your medications, all of that, I'm responsible for. So just because you have care from other providers doesn't mean I don't need to know about it pretty intimately, pretty thoroughly. And I don't need to at least know what's going on and see how your other care plans kind of fall in line with the care plan that you're getting from your specialist. So I know that was kind of a lot of lingo for the, for someone who's not a provider, but basically I have to know what's going on with you. And sometimes it can take me 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30, 40 minutes maybe to read your chart and everything that's been going on with you since you were last seen. And again, if you're brand new to me or you're brand new to the practice, I have to read everything from like years back to see who are you, what's going on with you, what can I do for you, what are things that I absolutely have to watch out for to make sure that you are not unsafe, that you're taking care of the way you need to be and I'm not unsafe due to liability for missing something that I shouldn't have missed. Sometimes it's just like literally an X-ray and a blood test if you're a young, healthy person or sometimes like I said, it could be hundreds of pages of documents that I have to at least scroll through and get the gist and see what's going on before I can even say hi to you. So if you're waiting for a long time, sometimes that's the reason. In fact, I'd say that's probably most commonly the reason that you're waiting for a long time is because I'm just trying to get a good idea of what's going on with you. Do know that as a primary care provider I definitely empathize with your frustration. Having to sit there for even like 10 minutes past your appointment time, you probably think I'm making an appointment with I don't know Boris, the PA or with the doctor or whoever at one o'clock, that provider is gonna see me at one o'clock. That's not what actually happens. What happens is hopefully by one o'clock, maybe by like 1.15, 1.20, the nurse actually calls you in, takes your weight, takes your blood pressure, asks you all the stuff that the nurse is gonna ask and then when the provider reads all of that and is done reviewing your chart, then they're gonna see you. So it might be even like at best 20, 30 minutes from your appointment time before the provider actually sees you and that's legitimately at best. At worst, it might be even longer. So in case you are a patient that's ever been frustrated by this kind of thing, I just really hope that explanation helps you understand things from my perspective as the provider that's gonna see you and know that I'm not trying to keep you waiting because I like to keep you waiting because I think you deserve to be kept waiting or for any other reason except for the fact that this is just how the process works and this is what we have to do in order to get you the best possible care that we can provide for you. So just a really quick video, I wanted to give you the provider's perspective if you're a patient and sometimes you're frustrated that you might be kept waiting for a long time. I wanna say first off, it's unacceptable to keep you waiting for more than like 20, 30 minutes past your appointment time. But if I do that or if any provider does that, especially a new provider, you know, have some grace, we're trying our best, we're doing the best we can. We're not just lollygagging and chilling and like watching YouTube videos back there, we're working. You know, if you've ever seen a provider at work, we are working our butt off basically from the moment we get in there to the moment we leave. Yeah, sometimes we'll have like a pleasant conversation with our friends at the office and nurse just to like keep morale going, keep the team happy and energetic and feel like their provider cares for them. Like that's as important as actually providing medical care, making sure that my team feels heard, understood and cared for. Even if I can't spend a lot of time with them, I at very least would wanna like exchange pleasantries, say hi, how are you doing? How's your kids? How was that thing you told me about yesterday? How's your car? Just like make the team feel like someone cares about them even just for a second. And that's important. So if you see us conversing, usually that's what's going on. We just wanna keep the team morale up. And if you're kept waiting, it's usually because we're trying to provide the best care that we can for you and we're reading everything that we can and that we need to in order to provide that for you. So in case you are a patient that's ever been frustrated by this kind of thing, I just really hope that explanation helps you understand things from my perspective as the provider that's gonna see you and know that I'm not trying to keep you waiting because I'd like to keep you waiting because I think you deserve to be kept waiting or for any other reason except for the fact that this is just how the process works and this is what we have to do in order to get you the best possible care that we can provide for you. See you in the next video.