Why 15-Minute Visits Don’t Work — And What Real Medicine Requires Instead

Why 15-Minute Visits Don’t Work — And What Real Medicine Requires Instead

 

Most people don’t expect perfection when they see a medical provider. They just want someone who will sit with them long enough to understand what’s going on, ask thoughtful questions, and give them a clear idea of what might be causing their symptoms.

But in the modern healthcare system, most visits labeled as “15 minutes” really end up giving patients about 7–10 minutes of actual clinician time once documentation and administrative requirements are factored in.

In that amount of time, it is extremely difficult—not because providers lack skill or compassion, but because thorough medicine takes time, curiosity, and the space to reason through a problem.

This is why so many people feel dismissed, misdiagnosed, or shuffled between specialists without answers. It’s not the clinicians themselves—it’s the system forcing them into a method of practice that doesn’t match the complexity of real human health.

 

1. The Problem Starts When Visits Become Algorithmic Instead of Thoughtful

In a short visit, the clinician often has time to ask just enough questions to make a decision—usually the fastest or most obvious one—not necessarily the correct one.

For example:

• A patient with UTI symptoms gets an antibiotic reflexively.
• Another with similar symptoms gets repeated antibiotics despite never growing bacteria.
• Someone with “sinus infections” receives steroids and antibiotics when the real issue might be migraine.
• Patterns get missed because the right questions never get asked.

Short visits don’t just rush care—they narrow the diagnostic imagination.

 

2. Specialists Often Receive Patients Without a Working Diagnosis

Patients are often referred out before the primary clinician forms even a basic hypothesis. Specialists rule out what they are trained to rule out, and when their tests are normal, the patient is sent back without answers.

In rushed primary care, no one has time to connect the dots—but that is often what patients need most.

 

3. A Real Example: When Time and Persistence Changed a Patient’s Life

A young woman came to Mermaid Well with years of chronic pain, profound fatigue, dizziness, and “normal” test results after seeing multiple specialists.

During a one-hour visit:

• Her symptom pattern suggested POTS, which was later confirmed.
• Her pain pattern suggested autoimmune inflammation.
• Targeted testing revealed early autoimmune disease long before it would typically be recognized. Time, curiosity, and thoughtful reasoning—not algorithms—led to her diagnosis.

 

4. Patients Feel the Difference Immediately

I frequently hear:

• “You’re the first clinician who actually examined me.”
• “No one ever explained anything to me before.”
• “My doctor shrugged when I asked what was wrong.”

Patients don’t expect miracles—just effort and understanding.

 

5. The Biggest Risks of Short Visits

Short visits increase:

• misdiagnosis
• overprescribing
• missed early disease
• unnecessary specialist referrals
• fragmented care
• loss of trust in the medical profession

These issues arise not from lack of caring, but from lack of time.

 

6. Good Medicine Requires Curiosity and Space to Think

Clinical reasoning depends on questions like:

• What else could this be?
• Does this symptom pattern suggest a deeper process?
• If this test is normal, what does that imply?
• What diagnosis fits all symptoms?

These questions require time. Without it, they rarely get asked.

 

7. The Right Questions Give More Answers Than Most Tests

Tests support a diagnosis—they do not create one. Thoughtful questioning reveals far more than imaging or labs.

 

8. What More Time Allows Me to Do

More time allows me to:

• explore symptoms thoroughly
• examine carefully
• research unusual findings
• think through physiology
• form a meaningful working diagnosis
• explain everything clearly

Even when I don’t have the answer yet, patients know I’m committed to finding it.

Time is not a luxury—it is a medical tool.

At Mermaid Well, patients receive care that is thoughtful, thorough, and rooted in genuine clinical reasoning—not rushed checkboxes.