Too Many Choices/Too Much Help

"In this day and age, a man has to have choices, a man has to have a little bit of variety."
On the one hand, this is true. On the other, too many choices can cripple a man. If you want to prove this, take a group of first grade children for ice cream. If you give them the options of either chocolate or vanilla, you will be happy and be able to exit the parlour relatively quickly and with most of your sanity intact.
Take the same group to Baskin Robbins and time and sanity will be forever lost. Too many choices cripples the group.

The same can be said for healthcare.
"The more care we provide for patients, the less they are able to do for themselves."
We text patients it's time to refill their prescriptions.
We text patients it's time to pick up the refills we filled for them.
We text patients it's still time to pick up their refills.
We call patients to make sure they received our texts.
We call and fax the patients' prescribers for their refills.
We look up their new insurance information.
We check their copays.
We call for prior authorizations.

When the system breaks down, the patients are crippled because they don't know how to properly call in a refill request to the pharmacy or prescriber.
They don't know how to make their own appointments.
They don't understand their insurances anymore.
They don't understand how to do anything for themselves.
Their personal care becomes dependent upon our broken system.
In an effort to help them, we are actually hurting them.

Think of the millennial bashing. It's a great pastime but it's not entirely their fault.
It's their parents' fault.
They established a sense of entitlement.
Mommy and daddy will call your teacher because you got a bad grade.
Mommy and daddy will move to whatever town you decide to go to college.
Mommy and daddy will write your resume and go to your job interview with you.
Now we have a bunch of "not-yet-ready-for-primetime players".

Too much care equals too little personal agency.
The initial intent of predictive refill programs and reminder calls was noble: increase compliance to increase patient outcomes. I know there are studies to support the positive outcomes. The problem is our profession ran with these programs and made them into metrics. Once that happened, the nobility wore off while Jekyll and Hyde switched places.

The less we do, the more helpful we will be.
It seems to work from a corporate standpoint: They cut our help expecting us to do more.
Let's apply that to patient care.
Let's do less for them so we can do more.

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."