I loathed these visits when I had to do primary care. I understand the patient's position and don't hold that against them but can we just decide as a society t

I loathed these visits when I had to do primary care. I understand the patient's position and don't hold that against them but can we just decide as a society to let people take occasional sick days and stop wasting everyone's time with short-term sick notes, especially as these requirements disproportionately affect low SES individuals. I'm sure someone's studied it but I would confidently bet this song and dance costs society more than the supposed malingering it is preventing. > Now a doctor's note seems to be a reasonable ask, but have you ever tried to get one? Start with limited transportation and insurance, then get into the doctor's office and ask. I think I've made 3-4 requests and at least two, I was refused any excuse. Is this common? I perform procedures sometimes and most of the things I do require no time off / limitations so I don't get asked a lot but I've been noticing patients seem increasingly awkward when asking for a sick note and go into a long story trying to justify the request. Haven't been sure why as I sure as shit wouldn't want to work the day after I had a biopsy but your experience provides some context. Personally, I have an extremely low threshold to write a 2-3 day note if someone wants one which is how I was taught in medical school, I assumed this was how most physicians practiced. Unless someone is a frequent flier asking for sick notes every week (without an appropriate reason) I wonder where the physician hesitancy is coming from, it's incredibly easy to medicolegally justify a short leave < 7 days. Edit: Checked Cochrane out of curiosity and was surprised to see they had a review on this topic with (unsurprisingly) "very low certainty" evidence. For self-certification < 3 days 2 studies reported an increase in work time lost of 0.54 and 1.38 days/person-year. On the other hand increasing self-certification to 50 days or 1 year had decreased impact on time off (granted it seems they only counted days off due to longer absences). Even if these numbers are accurate for < 3 days (ignoring all the methodological flaws pointed out in the Cochrane review) this is already such a minuscule effect before factoring in the increased spread of illness, economic impact and burden on the system it's barely worth discussing. Honestly, even assuming the worst that this is malingering for 1 day/year I feel like we're better off as a society just calling it a "wellness day" and moving on. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013098.pub2/abstract https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...