My op-ed was published yesterday in the Nashua Telegraph: What we have in health care today is a failure to communicate.

Here’s an excerpt:

Communication in medicine grows worse by the day. What should be a pillar of quality health care is instead a resounding failure.

Patients are rushed through office visits and often leave without having their questions answered. Labyrinthine barriers have to be overcome before speaking with a physician. Reaching a medical provider via the Internet is an impossibly daunting task. Doctors rarely talk to each other to coordinate treatment plans.

With appointments packing schedules in 15-minute increments, physicians report there is not enough time to conduct an appropriate office visit. This is to the patient’s detriment, as studies show that the public adequately understands their doctor’s instructions only half of the time. In today’s digital age, one should ideally be able to e-mail or instant message their providers to ask follow-up questions.

This infrequently happens, as Medicare and private insurers rarely pay for electronic communication. A physician who repeatedly handles patient requests outside of an office visit will lose money, contributing to the reluctance of the medical community to embrace the Internet.