I spend hours doing emotional counseling with patients and nothing happens. Why? Because you have slipped into the role of unpaid counselor instead of treating provider, and that trap eats your day with no case to show for it. It happens when there is no structure to the conversation. The patient brings emotional baggage or money worries, you have a big heart, and you sit there absorbing it while the actual decision goes nowhere. Empathy is not the problem. The lack of a path is. A good selling process holds room for the patient's emotion and financial reality without letting the [...]