Indeed, a physician who refuses to discuss or treat two different patient complaints in one visit, thereby requiring the the patient to return for another session to discuss the problems separately, will likely be paid twice as much by the insurance company.

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Dr. Hardeep Singh, who led the new study at the Houston VA Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence, added that most of the missed diagnoses were traced back to the office visit and the doctor not getting an accurate patient history, doing a full exam or ordering the correct tests.

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The inspectors warned that in all of the patient records seen during their visit in March, sections of forms for confirming the correct site for surgery were blank.

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It's been 12 minutes, the patient has her prescriptions, and the visit is concluding.

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Ms. Peled, the executive chef, says that if a patient is having a particular dietary challenge, she will personally visit and see if there is something the kitchen can do.

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Staff from the government's "National Patient Access Team" will visit all seven this week and draw up a recovery plan, expecting "dramatic improvements" within six months.

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As a result, your visit is getting shorter -- the average time a doc has to spend with each patient has dwindled to a speedy seven minutes, research shows.

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This cultural norm is reversed in some African countries I have visited, where a healthcare visit which does not result in an injection of some description is generally judged by the patient or parent to have had a failed outcome.

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On my last visit to one, I watched a morbidly obese patient die, while slumped over in his wheelchair, among the 30 patients lined up that morning to see the doctor.

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