We are experiencing high call volume. Please hold.
No matter who you call, this is the repeated message. Maybe they will intersperse some horrible music which, after a minute or two, will intermittently click and stop playing, making you think someone has picked up the phone. You get a surge of adrenalin. But, no! The recording about high call volume replays and the horrible music returns, only to replay that click 60 seconds later which again makes you hopefully stop what you are doing to talk to the person who will never pick up the phone. If you are lucky, after an hour, someone may pick-up. But, more often than not, you will be disconnected, only to repeat the process. Perhaps the answering machine will pretend to let you leave a message that will never be returned. This is a special kind of hell and you can’t escape because something big has happened and you need to get into contact with a real human. Perhaps the hospital is threatening you with collections for a $9000.00 bill you don’t owe. It doesn’t matter how much torture they make you endure. You really need a human and, based on the threatening letter you got, you need to speak to someone now. But you will never get a human and if you do, they will pretend they will get back to you and never return your call. The offending company will claim Covid precautions or hiring troubles or global warming or something else. Bottom line, this horrible hellish customer service by hospitals, insurance companies and, yes, medical offices is by design. It is not a defect. It is a feature and it works pretty darned well for them, thank you very much!
Wall Street Journal published an article today 12/08/2022 on this topic and mentioned a company named GetHuman that might be able to help.
Ours has the suicide hotline number in the rotation. You know, the one that has been down for days. They don’t want to talk to you either.
When I still worked a few (like 2.5 years ago) they had live people answering the phones and actually they triaged pretty well. Too bad nowadays one gets a recording machine.
A good nurse (M/F) I’m not prejudiced as to die for as an M.D. I had an office nurse for over 25 years who was great until she retired and another one for 5 years until I threw in the towel. They were great dealing with patients too!
Was a supervising Doc for a nurse practitioner and she was “danged” good!
When Debbie came up to me and said,”Doc, I got this patient.” I knew I had to put on my thinking cap! Many times she did a good pick and I needed to admit the patient to the hospital!
I miss the interactions now. I think my first nurse might be deceased and I missed the notice.
Kurt Savegnago, M.D. (retired 2.5 years)
Good post, but I don’t think this is by design in medical offices (at least those that are physician-owned).
As you well know, the number of calls has exploded and there’s no way we can hire more staff to do work that we won’t get paid for. Add to that that all the lines are tied up with staff talking to insurers and PBMs . . . bad situation that will only get worse.
I can’t honestly remember the last time I had to actually call my physicians office.
I got a call from them asking if I wanted to schedule an appointment!!! I laughed and asked if business was slow?!?!
I use their portal. It’s far less aggravating than being on hold!!
Yeah but if doctor’s offices don’t call back in an hour, they’re in deep Kimchi and lawyers can come knocking on their door. Glad I aged out of it (retired).