Some programmers can be difficult to work with. Some of the best programmers don’t have great people skills and may be amazing at coding but not so great at communicating with you. As a client this can be frustrating and you may feel that you are often not listened to and have to keep chasing to get what you need.
There are a number of things you can do to help the situation and make sure that everyone works well together. If your programmer is self employed then you may want to ask them which days they are available and the best time to contact them. It may be that they prefer to be contacted in the morning so they have all day to respond. Also many programmers prefer to communicate via email rather than on the phone as they can then respond when they have finished what they are working on. Having to take a phone call in the middle of programming can be quite frustrating.
If you feel that you are not getting work done as quickly as you would like then you could ask them for a timeline and to set deadlines for certain parts of the project. Ask them to agree to a date and to let you know if that is going to change. This will make them take a bit more ownership for the work and often is enough to get your work prioritised. Ensuring you pay sub-contractors or, people on time also will often get you looked after that little bit more.