Table 1.

Major topics and key questions, according to interview time point

Pre-visit	Now let’s talk specifically about your HIV doctor. For your upcoming visit:
	Hopes	Your first HIV clinic visit is coming up. What’s been going through your mind? What do you hope you’ll get from that visit? How would you know your doctor is providing you the best HIV care? For you personally, what would make your doctor a perfect match for you and your needs? How would he or she work with you, talk to you, treat you?
	Expectations	What do you think your HIV doctor will do? What do you think your doctor will talk about?
	Past experiences	How do you think this doctor will compare to other doctors that you’ve seen in the past for other things? The other doctors can be any type of doctor.
0–2 weeks post-visit	Last time we talked about your plans and expectations. Today, I would like to focus on how your visit actually went. First, let’s talk about your HIV doctor.
	First impressions	What was your first impression of the doctor? How different or similar was the doctor from what you thought he/she would be like?
	Valued attributes	What did you like about the doctor? What did you not like about the doctor? Using any number from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst doctor possible and 10 is the best doctor possible, what number would you use to rate your doctor? What did you have in mind when you gave a ___ rating? What would make you give a 10 rating? Assuming you can switch doctors, what are some things that would cause you to switch to another HIV doctor at this clinic?
	Actionable opportunities	Is there anything the doctor could have done to make your experience better? Did the doctor tell you everything you needed or wanted to know? If you could change one thing about your HIV doctor, what would you change?
6–12 months post-visit	Last time we talked about how your first visit to the HIV clinic went. Today I’d like to talk about what’s gone on since that first visit. Tell me about your most recent visit with the HIV doctor.
	Journey in patient-provider relationship	Think about how you felt right after your first visit with the doctor and how you feel right now about the doctor. Has anything changed for you?
	Valued attributes	What did you like about your most recent visit with this doctor? What did you not like about your most recent visit with this doctor? Using any number from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst doctor possible and 10 is the best doctor possible, what number would you use to rate your doctor? What did you have in mind when you gave a ___ rating? What would make you give a 10 rating?
	Actionable opportunities	Is there anything the doctor could have done to make your experience better? Did the doctor tell you everything you needed or wanted to know? If you could change one thing about your HIV doctor, what would you change?