How much time am I entitled to take with my doctor (in Canada), or how many issues per visit is reasonable to try to address?

kechi, ok ALL doesn't necessarily mean 100%. That's where your age is showing. I mean there's a general feeling in Canada where patients there are made to feel like seeing their doc is a godly experience and you better damn well not question your doctor's magical wisdom and u are damn lucky to have this doctor in the first place ( I am keenly aware of Canada's doctor shortage) so it all adds up to a really negative experience for a Canadian patient. ps- PDQ is commonly known as pretty damn quick. Don't most people know what PDQ means?

The absolute worst way imaginable to deal with multiple minor health issues is to go to a walk-in. They've got a room full of patients waiting, most of them for things with some degree of urgency, and someone wants to talk about the mole on her arm and the rash on her legs and the weird noise her heart makes when she runs and the status of her asthma and the reasons why she's fat and... If you really need to deal with that many health issues, make an appointment (many walk-in clinics allow you to use their doctors as regular doctors and make appointments to see them) and make it clear that you have multiple issues to deal with. They may ask you to make multiple appointments (see: billing reasons listed above, and see also: not likely to have multiple consecutive appointment slots available in a day), or find a way to do things together as much as possible, but you have to give them at least a bit of a chance to manage these things and not spring it on them unexpectedly. (Please note: all medical issues described above are taken from my own laundry list of things I might wish to speak with my doctor about, eventually, and are not, in fact, meant to constitute a list of things that might or might not be wrong with GleepGlop.)

they will often limit you to one problem per visit for the simple reason that the amount your family doctor can bill OHIP for a typical visit is $29.70. Or, perhaps, your doctor is trying to be equal and fair to all of his patients and respect everyone's time as best he or she can, as well as document everything, fill out every form that has to be filled out, write medications, review previous charts and labs and radiology reports. If your appointment is for 15 minutes, rank your questions/concerns by priority, and don't necessarily expect to get everything answered in one visit, especially if you're a new patient. Also realize, for everyone question one asks, there's a series of follow-up questions a doctor will usually ask--often medicine isn't yes/no, it's maybe. If your doctor thinks multiple issues aren't too time consuming, it should be fine; personally I think a strict "one issue per visit" rule is kind of silly.

My doctor asks that we limit issues to two per visit which seems resonable. If only because I don't feel like waiting in the waiting room while some hypocondriac bush man discusses the 35 issues he's saved up in the last year he's been manning his trap line. I never feel rushed during the appointment. GoodJob! http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/35027#545737 "In the USA, people have choice ( within their insurance coverage) but also anyone here can also pay out of pocket." Within their insurance coverage is a pretty big caveat, most people have very limited choices. Some of the HMOs my wife had to deal with restricted coverage to a single clinic.

I was wrong--the Toronto Life article mentioned above is available online http://www.torontolife.com/magazine/index.cfm?listing_id=109.

Oh, as a matter of interest, apparently you can't see more than one doctor about the same issue in one day. After getting a contraindicated prescription from a walk-in doctor on my regular doctor's day off, I called my doctor's office, explained the situation, and went to see my doctor's practice partner. She explained the billing issue to me. We came up with a way to deal with the situation so that I got help and she got paid. However, it was a shock to me. (And I stilll remember this doctor being very concerned about her $28. She was only working a couple of days a week and said she couldn't afford to lose $28. Then she spent 30 minutes on the phone to the pharmacist on my behalf.)

In BC, doctors get about $28 per visit and they're not supposed to see more than about 6 patients per hour, on average. This means they're allowed to bill a maximum of $168 an hour if they see six patients (assume 3 some hours, 8 others, etc). Out of that comes their receptionist, after hours call service, rent, office supplies, equipment, continuing education, etc. I'm not saying doctors are poor (they make it up on sheer volume/demand), but this isn't a crazy hourly rate. There's only so much you can expect a doctor to cover in 10 minutes.

Yeah I was popping in to mention that Toronto Life article. They can bill so little per visit that they need you to make that second appointment for the second issue. Although presumably if they're quiet enough and don't have another appointment for half an hour sometimes they'll be courteous enough to do it.

http://www.torontolife.com/'s March 2006 issue had a really informative cover story titled "How to Find a Good Doctor" by Vincent Lam, MD, that addressed your question and many related others. (It doesn't look like old articles are archived online so if you want complete details, you should try checking your local library to see if they subscribe.) According to Dr. Lam, since most doctors are still being paid on a "fee for service" basis, they will often limit you to one problem per visit for the simple reason that the amount your family doctor can bill OHIP for a typical visit is $29.70. This amount must cover overhead like rent, equipment, insurance, and other professional and administrative expenses before s/he gets a cut. It typically takes 10-12 minutes to properly assess a problem and recommend treatment so if you show up with multiple problems, your doctor may be irked since s/he continues to incur these overhead costs long after your scheduled appointment is over. It's advised that you book a separate appointment for each issue so that you're not rushed through a single one.