How responsive is your therapist? What about your pdoc?

My therapist is fairly responsive. If I call her on Monday, for example, then she will get back to me later that day. She will rarely call me back on Tuesday. So, she pretty much responds the same day and makes time to talk to me for a few mins if needed.

My pdoc has a stupid assistant who gets in the way, so I can't actually talk to him outside of appts, and half the time, his assistants get things wrong, so I really don't bother unless it's something critical.

My psychiatrist is the ideal in responsiveness. I don't recall ever having to wait more than 24 hours to hear back from him. Usually I get a call back in a few hours, or even less. He makes changes to my meds over the phone, sometimes, or gets me in within two days (sometimes same day) for emergency appointments. He has given me the go-ahead to call him even during some of his vacations, depending, but I never have. He's quite marvelous!

Responsiveness has varied among my past therapists. A couple were great, the rest either so-so or not so good. My current therapist is so-so. She never seems to have available time for emergency sessions. She does respond to my emails, but in only superficially helpful ways. I do like her, despite, but if I am having a significant mood episode, I contact my psychiatrist first. My therapy is weekly, so I can usually manage with just stress stuff. When I see my psychiatrist between therapy appointments, I can discuss some "therapy" things with him. He gives me 20-25 mins, which is more than most people's med checks. My psychiatrist knows more about me than any of my past therapists, or current one. The only negative in this is that my psychiatrist is like a parental figure.

My therapist gets back to me same day; usually within an hour or 2. My Pdoc game me his phone number and told me to text or call. I never call, and he usually ignores my texts. Right now I’m low on meds and need a prior authorization because of a new insurance. He’s about to leave on a 3 week trip and is not responding to me. I’m trying to decide if he’s probably working on it or if I should call. But he might have already left. I think I might have enough to last until he gets back if I cut some old pills of a different dosage and maybe taper the dose slightly. I’m stable so I could probably manage.

I don't know if it's different where you are, but where I am it's usually the pharmacy's responsibility to contact psychiatrists for such prior authorizations. I have had pharmacies suggest I nudge a psychiatrist, but they initially did it. Can you ask your pharmacy to send him the request again?

I've never tried to call t. Pdoc calls me back within 2 days.

Mine is horrible. I can write I’m hopeless and want to end it and he won’t right back or will write “ok” and that’s it.

No no no

(and I do not ''over use'' the ''services'' - quite the opposite. I stay as far away from them as I can

Pdoc usually has assistant call back same day if I call early enough. Sometimes he has me call back a week later to check in

T does email and responds relatively soon-usually within a couple days

My NP and therapist both call back the same day on routine matters. Both are relatively new to me and I haven’t yet had an emergency with either one.

Well my Pdoc covers 3 clinics so he has no trouble in making Med changes over the phone.. I just call, talk to Jane his nurse ( she’s fantastic) and she sends him a message, typically she gets back to me that day or the next day with his response .. If I need to see him I’m fitting into his schedule on his next offices hours at the facility I go to.

But honestly I haven’t needed to call him for many years, I have on hand heavy hitters like zyprexa , Haldol etc if I need to snow myself under and he’s fine with that.

Well I have called my T between sessions less than 10 -11 times in 9 years, probably 4-5 were calls he told I had to make. I don’t want to be a “ bother “ yes I know , he would never think of me as a bother, it’s one of my struggles “ being a burden” I have his cell and even Home number , I only called his cell once because he called me and insisted I call him. Hell NO I would never call his home number. I dunno.. even when I get bad I can usually just keep it semi together by thinking okay well I’ll see Richard on X days.

He has kinda scolded me for not calling at times when I see him and tell him how I’m doing. But hell he knows if I were to call I’m a hot mess.

He’s only working 3 days a week and I had to go to every 2 weeks .. so sometimes I’ll think Oh Shyt it’s gonna be X days.

I’m very happy with them both, I’m going to be sad when they both retire

I’m very blessed

Wow, I am so sorry to hear that, MatBell. That is truly awful!

Is there any way you can get a new provider? I live in the U.S., so things are quite different here, but he doesn't seem to care about his clients if he is ignoring things or only writing "ok." The least he could do is point you to some online resources or say something like, "do you feel safe?"

I don't know how you feel about doing this, but you could report him if you wanted to.

Thank you.
I know. I plan on stopping going to him, I just don’t get anything out of discussing my problems with him. He can handle the meds but that’s about it.
Before I had a psychologist who was much better but it ended, mostly my own fault. But she always responded and was very helpful.

At one point I wrote and said I was feeling really bad and thought of going inpatient and he wrote “OK”. A couple of days ago I wrote that I was hopeless and really feeling awful. Never heard anything back. He himself has said I could always write. Not gonna do that anymore...

Not sure what to do. I know I can’t handle things on my own the way I’m feeling right now. I have an appointment with him tomorrow and plan on cancelling. I just don’t see the point..

Don't you just love the "stupid assistant"... My pdoc has one of those, too.