I have lately injured my knee and am on crutches, in a brace and on a bad day in enough pain to warrant a Percocet (or two or three). Through this process I have had to call the orthopedist's office a few times. Of course, you expect an answering service to field the "How do I get to the office?" and "What are your hours?" questions. But, once you get past that and onto the line of the secretary for the doctor, you would like a person to answer. Instead, I have been thanked for my patience and told how someone will be with me soon or will get to my call in the order in which it was received. Now I know how busy a doctor's office can be and I want the person answering the phone to take their time with each patient. But if you call 4 times in one day and each time are instantly on hold after pressing 3 for Dr. X then automatically asked to leave a message after a few minutes, what is the point of the holding in the first place? The same thing happened to me when I called the insurance company to see if I needed approval for the MRI which of course I didn't and I knew that and if the secretary had listened to me on the day of my initial appointment I wouldn't have had to go through any of this aggravation!!! AGGHHH!
Sorry, calming down. Anyway, if they don't have time to answer the phone, just send me right to voice mail. Although, this isn't the best outcome either considering I left a few messages and no one called me back. So, I went for the press "0" or stay on the line option and got a very nice person who tried to pry the other call out of Dr. X's secretary's hands to help me, then just helped me herself. All I wanted to do was schedule an MRI. It's not like I wanted a prescription written without being seen (although I am running low on those Percocets) or a diagnosis over the phone. Alas, I was scheduled and I had my MRI, which was very pleasant by the way. In fact, I was so relaxed I fell asleep for about 20 of the 40 minutes it took to scan my knee.
So, my point today is, when I rule the world people will answer phones. There will be ample staff at doctor's offices, insurance companies and customer service centers. Even if the person answering the phone can't really help but can take a real message that will be given to a real person. And perhaps there will be an emplyee whose only job is to call back people who have left messages so customers and patients will think someone actually gives a hoot about them. Well, I guess I'll have to wait patiently on hold for a while until I am crowned queen of the world. Have a nice day.
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Sorry about the knee. Docs need to save their money to pay insurance and all the other crap they have to deal with, so the insurance companies can have rich CEOs that play cute games with gobs of money at the expense of the whole nation, while they jockey for the best looking tramp at the golf club to take to a Caribbean island when their wife's not looking. Docs even get money from the pharmaceuticals, so the drug companies CEOs can do the same thing as the insurance company CEOs. Nelly! I ain't no commy, but maybe socialized medicine is not only good, but inevitable. It's like now, in this system, "Bebe" is just an afterthought, a conduit/necessary evil to the funds that the doc needs and the insurance, drug, and medical equipment companies are all fighting for. Maybe business will self-regulate itself. We need more "good" CEOs.
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