Long-term readers of this blog have seen prior posts detailing how a significant percentage of patients simply don't follow instructions.

We send a summary letter to each patient after every visit. If they're doing well, it's unlikely that we'll ask them to do anything new or different. However, if blood sugars are less-than-optimally controlled, we might ask them to test blood sugars in certain patterns and send in a log of the results after a few weeks. We might instruct them to move up their regularly scheduled appointment or come in earlier for follow-up lab work.

If we take the last 25 patients (seen prior to today) having specific instructions to follow after their last visit, THREE of them complied fully and a total of FIVE followed instructions to some degree. TWENTY out of 25 apparently ignored, or refused, to follow instructions completely.

It may just be a record "bad week", but we can say that we rarely, if ever, even get close to a 50% compliance rate.

You would think patients would take more of an interest in their care.