This summer I'm sharing a handful of the 3,000 proverbs written or collected by King Solomon. Put his wisdom to work in your practice:
22:28 Do not move the ancient boundary marks. That is stealing.
Property lines are important. If you've ever built a fence, only later to discover it encroached upon your neighbor's property, you know it can be an expensive mistake. As is encroaching upon the territory of patients.
Know what is theirs and what is yours.
For example. It's your job to provide a care plan that is most likely to produce the greatest results in the shortest amount time for the least amount of money.
But it's their job to embrace your suggestions, follow them, show up for their appointments, do the actual healing and pay you for your service.
Blur these boundaries and you encroach upon the patient's property, making the encounter about you rather than them. Attempting to control patient priorities and behaviors that you're powerless to control is not only emotionally exhausting, it's unsustainable. Worse, few patients appreciate your overtures and often come to resent your rescue attempts to save them from themselves.