Evo Terra (Host): Welcome to Arbor Health and Life podcast, where we bring you engaging conversations with the trusted medical experts at Arbor Health. I'm Evo Terra. And with me is Dr. Travis Podbilski, the Rural Health Clinic's Medical Director and primary care physician at Randle Clinic. Thanks for joining me, Dr. Podbilski.

Travis Podbilski, DO: Hey, it's my pleasure. How are you today?

Host: Well, I'm doing great. I know that you created this clinic's expectation PSA of a sort. What inspired you to create this guide for patients?

Travis Podbilski, DO: The inspiration really was just me seeing how great healthcare can work when we're working together as a team, and how when certain pieces are missing, it can be sort of difficult to put those back together. And putting out something that just helps with expectations really just helps us all understand what we need to do to make sure that we're giving you the best care possible here at Arbor Health. And that everybody is happy with the care they're receiving from their primary care.

Host: And it's all about that partnership. And I know in the guide you talk about a partnership between patients and their healthcare team. In your words, what does being a good partner to the healthcare system look like in your eyes?

Travis Podbilski, DO: The two biggest things I would think are just communication. And, you know, communication helps, go a long way with lots of things in life. But specifically when you're being a partner in your healthcare. So, communicate, ask questions. You know, sometimes I don't know somebody has stopped a medication or started a over-the-counter supplement until I see them a few months later. And then, we're sort of having to backtrack and redo plans that have already been in place.

And so if you can tell your doctor, tell your primary care provider what is working, what's not working, and if you've made any changes, communicate with them. Ask questions if you are confused or just simply have any questions. That will make a much better partnership so that we all understand what each side is doing, and we can make decisions based on good information instead of what we think is actually going on.

Host: You brought up medication. I know that medication refills are one of the most common reasons patients are going to contact the clinic or their provider. What are some simple habits patients can develop to avoid running out of medication unexpectedly? And I'm taking notes because I'm about to travel for two months and I want to know.

Travis Podbilski, DO: The biggest advice I can give, and I do all the time, and we have samples here in clinic, is a pill box. And so, even if you just take one medication, I think everybody should have a pill box because the issue is people wait until it's too late, because they don't think about it. They're pulling medicine out of a bottle every day, and they think they have another one under the counter.

But if you have a pill box, you're filling that up every seven days, every 14 days, depending on how big your pill box is. And as you're filling up that pill box, you'll notice, "Oh, I didn't get that whole week fill." And so, if you can call your primary care's office and ask for a refill with a week notice, it works a lot easier than when you call on a Wednesday afternoon because you just realized you're out of medication for the next morning.

Sometimes medication refills are easy. It could just go right through the pharmacy. Sometimes that requires the primary care provider's input and maybe some decision-making, maybe even a phone call to the patient before a medication can be refilled. And so, sometimes there can be a delay in care, which we don't want as your providers, and you don't want that as a patient. And so, not waiting until the last minute and doing whatever you can to avoid waiting until the last minute, for which I think a pill box is the perfect solution.

Host: Yeah, I know it's how my wife and I survive by making sure that we know what's going on and what's left over that we need to get. Makes good sense. In your PSA, you emphasize leaving complete voicemail messages as a reality of the world we live in that I don't get a chance to talk to my doctor every time, and I have to leave a message. So, what information should every patient be including and how does that really help your team provide faster and safer care?

Travis Podbilski, DO: Faster and safer. Those are excellent, words to use because faster care, if you leave a message, "My name is first and last name, give me your birthday, give me your phone number so that we have something to call back and what you're calling about," that's faster because we can get into your chart and maybe even start doing some work behind the scenes while you're waiting for that call back.

We work at a rural health clinic. And so, a lot of times we know our patients pretty well, but unfortunately, "Hey, I'm John, I need to refill my blood pressure medicine," isn't a very good message because I'm not sure which John you are. And maybe even I do, but then I don't know which blood pressure medicine you need to have refilled. You might be taking two. And so, when you leave a message like that, one, you might not even get a call back because I don't have a call back number, and me or the nurse can't figure out who called, which is certainly going to be frustrating. That'll lead you to believe that your primary clinic didn't call you back, and that can be frustrating.

The other thing is it's safer because we don't get into the wrong patient's chart, which is not something that we would want to do and start making decisions off of bad information. So primarily, call, leave your full name, leave a call back number, leave your birthday. Your name and birthday are identifiers that we can use to make sure that we're getting into the right chart. And a good, full, complete message, exactly what you need, if it's a medication refill, if it's an appointment, what you need the appointment for, when you're hoping to make the appointment for. And then, when we give you a call back, it'll make that process even faster to try and get you the care you need.

Host: Great information. I wish my father would realize that. He lives in a town of around 300 people, and he just doesn't believe that he should tell them anything. But regardless of that, let's talk about maybe patients that are new to your practice or perhaps they haven't seen a provider regularly. What advice would you give them for navigating today's healthcare system with confidence?

Travis Podbilski, DO: To navigate with confidence is tough for all of us. There's new insurance rules. a lot of clinics operate differently from other clinics. And so, if you're new to our clinic, it'd be important to ask questions again. So when you're scheduling your appointment, when you're dropping off your new patient packet, or even during your first visit, ask how the clinic runs.

How do I get messages to my care team? Do you have a portal? Do I call and leave a voicemail? How do I get results? How does all that stuff work? How do I schedule appointments? Having an idea of how that particular clinic operates will help make things easier for you when you're trying to navigate what's turning into a relatively complex medical system these days.

Host: Complexity is definitely the norm these days. What patients helping out with their appointments they have with their provider? What can they do, a patient, so that they are going to leave their appointment with all of the answers and the care that they need?

Travis Podbilski, DO: Yeah. So again, ask questions, but some of the big things that you can do to prepare for an appointment and make sure an appointment goes well, one, have your list of one to two things that you're wanting to talk about. So when you come with a list of several things, we might be able to get to all those. But if you have one or two that are really important to you, we can make sure that we take care of those and then schedule follow-ups for other ones that we might not be able to fit into one appointment.

The other one is having your med list with you. And so, we sort of talked about meds and refills, but it's important to know what medications you're taking and why you're taking them. And so, if you bring all of your medicines with you, especially to an established care appointment or to an appointment where you're trying to adjust medications, bring all those with you, either the pill bottles or written down on a piece of paper, and then we can go over those medications with you, make sure you're taking the ones that you need, not taking ones that you don't, and then also making sure that you know why you're taking what medications.

You know, very often somebody, I'll ask them, "Hey, are you still taking blank medication?" They'll say, "Is that the blue one or the pink one?" And it's sort of tough to know that because different pharmacies make different pills, and we don't know what every one looks like. And so we can just do something just as simple as write down next to the medication what you take it for, and that can help communication work a lot better with us.

And just being as prepared as you can for the appointment, knowing what you're coming for, having an idea of what you want to get out of the appointment. And then, as the appointment ends, the goal is to wrap everything up so that we've asked any further questions, we have all the follow-ups understood.

So if I want to order an X-ray or if I'm asking to get some labs to evaluate certain health conditions, it's important to know where do I go to get those labs drawn? Who's going to draw my blood? When are they going to do it? Am I doing it here today or do I need to make an appointment? When am I going to get the results? If I'm scheduling a test or an X-ray perhaps, where do I go to get the X-ray? What's the hours? And then, again, how am I going to get the results?

So when you leave an appointment, if I'm ordering labs and I'm doing an X-ray, you should know where you're going to go to get the labs, who's going to call you with the results, the timeline to get those results. That way, you're not calling two days later asking questions, or you were confused when you left, or the doctor was confused when you left, and perhaps something didn't end up getting ordered. And so, it's important to almost wrap everything up and get a good idea of where you're going next and what's going to happen next.

Host: Excellent, excellent ideas there. Now, speaking of wrapping up, this is going to be my last question for you today. Is there anything that patients often hesitate to ask or may not realize about how clinics operate that you wish more people actually understood?

Travis Podbilski, DO: And sometimes this turns into patients thinking that we are trying to say they're doing something wrong or that they're bothering us, and I want to make sure patients know they're not bothering us. We're here for their care. We want to make sure that we're providing them the best healthcare possible, while at the same time sort of getting a peek behind the curtain and understanding the behind the scenes of everything.

So, a healthcare provider's day is scheduled from the moment they walk in the door till the day they leave the door with patients who have appointments. And so, every message, every phone call, every portal message, every medicine refill request, that's all unscheduled time for that healthcare team. And so, understanding and having some compassion with the schedule and knowing when someone's going to reply to them with a question, I think is important. And it sort of ties back into the reason that we wrote this to begin with, is having those expectations and understanding how your healthcare works so that when you're calling for a question, you understand what the turnaround, I guess, is going to be.

How long is it going to take before someone gets this message back to me? And just having the compassion to work together as a healthcare team so that we can make sure that we're delivering the best healthcare possible. And of course, if you have an emergency, there's always emergency rooms, and we have a rapid care here at Morton open Friday through Monday for everybody's convenience. But just understanding what it takes to have a team in your healthcare.

Host: A team in the healthcare is key. Thank you very much for all the information you've shared with us today, Dr. Podbilski.

Travis Podbilski, DO: Oh, sure. It was my pleasure. Thank you guys for having me.

Host: And for more information, please visit our website at myarborhealth.org, where you can also explore our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you and share your favorite episodes on social media. Thank you for watching this episode of Arbor Health and Life, a podcast from Arbor Health.