(This post is in regards to my time at a doctor's office. However, I'm not a healthcare worker, I just made appointments. So I'm a bit iffy on where to stick this one tbh.)
I actually completely forgot I even had an account here. Last time I posted, I told the tale of my first and my worst customer suck experiences. At the end of that, I mentioned how I had just started work at a doctor's office making appointments.
I'm now free from that hell-hole and holy shit I will never work at a doctor's office EVER AGAIN. I really wish I had remember my account here. I could have told these all when they happened!
Since they're not all fresh in my mind anymore, let me summarize making appointments at a doctor's office:
#1. You need your heart to live.
During any given week, I received AT MINIMUM 2-3 people who wanted to be seen for "chest pains". You do not go to your doctor for chest pains. Unless you're sick and your chest hurts from coughing so much, GO TO THE ER. We will NOT make you an appointment. We don't have the ability to treat you! And the hospital is literally a spit take from our office! Go there, you will be seen immediately!
I had one man who called and tried this. When I finally convinced him to go the ER, he says: "Fine. I was hoping to get in now since I'm here in the parking lot."
You can see the big ER sign from our parking lot. Just....what? WHAT?
#2. You are the reason the wait time is so long.
I'd get one or two phone calls a week that went along this line:
Me: (Name of clinic), this is Rabbit, how can I help you?
SC: Yes, I'd like to make an appointment to see Dr. X. I have a horrible cold and I feel just awful. (Insert an number of symptoms taken from WebMD here).
*Searches computer, sees he has ONE spot still open. It's a miracle. >.>*
Me: I can get you in at 11:30am.
SC: Oh, no. That won't work. I have a hair appointment at 10:30 and I won't be done before then.
Me: *facedesk facedesk facedesk*
All of these calls usually involved women over the age of 60. Look, I understand that you probably don't get around much and going to the hair salon makes you feel better and you get to socialize, but if you're as sick as you SAY you are (because they never SOUND sick at all) then you'll reschedule your hair appointment and come in today. More than likely, I'm going to have someone call right after you who is actually hacking up a lung and you just took the last open spot when you're probably not even sick.
A lot of people do this, because they've just seen an ad for some disease/new pill, etc and think they must have that and want to be see NOW. Because it's convenient for THEM to do it now. Doctors' schedules are set up with different times allotted depending on what you're calling for. If you're just sick with a cold or something similar, your allotted time is shorter than someone who's coming in for a complete yearly physical. Because they take forever for both the doctors and the nurses and a visit for a cold is usually quick. So if you're not honest with the appointment desk as to why you're coming in and we give you a 10 minute spot and you take up 30 minutes of the doctor's time with stupid bullshit.....congrats. Now you know why you waited so long to see him in the first place.
#3. You're the reason I don't want kids.
I don't mind kids at all. Even when they're sick and screaming their heads off, you understand that they can't help it; they feel bad and screaming is one way they communicate that. But parents......oh God. I would rather hack off both my legs and crawl a 5k directly after then take the chance of becoming like some of the parents I've met. You've got a few category of parents:
A. "My child sneeze, I think she has the bird flu I need to get in NOWNOWNOWNOW."
Always good for a laugh. In our office, if the doctor's schedule was full and a patient was insisting on being seen that day, we'd have to take all their information down, including symptoms and take it back to the doctor for review. He'd work people in if he believe they couldn't wait for another day; IE almost everyone. Because our Admin was all about more $$. There's nothing like getting the most vague descriptions of illnesses ever and taking that note back to the doctor.
There's a reason doctors thinks appointment schedulers are idiots. It's because we don't know how to translate idiot speak into rational human being speak.
B. "My child as a fever of 104.8. I'd like to make an appointment for next week."
I....wait, what? Are-are you serious? Dude, if you popped an egg over your kids' head, he could make you an omelet! Go to the ER you dimwit! And yes, I've heard stuff like this WAY TOO MANY TIMES. There's no middle ground! Either they're not sick but the parents saying their dying, or they're on death's door and the parents don't seem to realize what's going on. Good Lord.
C. "Okay, so I have an appointment for child A. Oh, wait. Do you think he could see child B, C, D, and E at the same time? They all need their physicals for school."
Well, since we aren't allowed to tell someone no according to our frothing MOREMONIES owner....
*sigh* *grabs note* Let me just ask.
No wonder the doctors keep running when they see me coming. >.>
#4. Well, I'm never hearing out of THAT ear again.
I don't know why people think that screaming, cussing and ranting and raving about things will help. Especially if it's to the appointment desk. We're just the messengers. Several of the doctors in our office did not accept new patients. After a few months of working there, they suddenly all changed their minds. And the new patients started flowing in like so much wine.
I guess a few of them were more like spoiled milk, as several doctors decided they wanted us to write up a note on each new patient, with as much background info as we could squeeze out of them so they could approve them beforehand or not.
We hated this. We could see anywhere from 200-300 people in a single day. You can imagine how that phone never. stopped. ringing. And there were THREE appointment setters. Three of us. The owner could also take appointments, but as she was, you know, the owner, she wasn't always available to do this. We tried to get you off the line as fast as we could so we could get the next person. Not to mention the people trying to check out and make follow up visits that come to our windows. So having to stop and interrogate a potential new patient was MADDENING.
And of course almost all them were prime candidates to be drug seekers. Now, let me preface this with: I understand chronic pain. I have chronic pain. I have avascular necrosis and osteochondritis dissecans in my left ankle. I've had multiple surgeries and have arthritis in that joint. I'm 33 and at any moment, my ankle could literally collapse in on itself, that is how bad it is. I get by with a built up tolerance for pain from 10 years of this, and an anti-inflammatory specifically because I don't want to become a pain med addict. So while yes, I absolutely understand that you have a very real medical issue and you absolutely need pain medication, I also understand that for every one of you that genuinely needs that medication to get by, there are 10 more people who are faking it so they can sell the meds for money or because they're addicted to it.
I can't always tell who's lying because the one who are addicted? They are good at faking it. So while I feel bad that the doctor said no, he will not take you as a patient because of the huge list of medications you're on that included an insane dosage of pain medication that should honestly have killed you long ago, there is NOTHING I can do about it.
The more you swear and scream and cry and plead, the more I think you're just another junkie looking for a fix.
It sucks for the real people who need it. And it's completely unfair. But stop taking it out on me.
#5. I am not a nurse.
I understand you're waiting at the pharmacy and you just left our office 5 seconds ago and OMGWHEREISMYPRESCRIPTION and yes, you are so very busy and can't be waiting forever but understand that in an 8 hour day, you're one of 30-40 patients that are being seen by that one doctor. Not to mention the death certificates he has to sign, the patients being seen by his nurse practitioner that she has to consult with him about, the nursing home patients he resides over that the home keeps calling about, the pharmacies that need an error fixed, the hospital calling down because one of his patients has been admitted and they need more info, DOZENS of test results that are constantly coming through that he needs to look at, evaluate, make a decision on and pass that info on to the nurses or call himself to do, freaking drug companies coming through to replenish samples that keep trying to schmooze there way into getting an audience with him, the administrator coming back to talk regarding a patient problem/complaint, the INSANE amount of calls/papers involved when someone comes in and ends up having to be admitted to the hospital and GOD HELP YOU if it's a day when he makes nursing home rounds or if you have one of the 3 doctors in our clinic who also sees patients at our VA clinic up the road.
I think you can wait 20 minutes for the nurse who hasn't had a break all day and ate a cold lunch at her desk to get 3 seconds from putting out figurative fires and helping the doctor while trying to get her own work done to call in your viagra. Because I. Can't. Help. You.
And no, I'm not transferring you back there! Do you think I want to have to walk back there to ask for something and be stared down by a group of pissed off nurses who were already angry at the world before I transferred your whiny ass to them?
#6. I have no soul.
You took it from me when you described, in detail, the smell, consistency and color of the discharge coming from your vagina/penis/anus. When you gave me the full play by play of everything your son has been through with his custody depute and how hard his life has been as you try to convince me to make him an appointment while he's in jail. When you spend 20 minutes of my time crying into the phone about how sick you've been your entire life, a full play of everything you've ever been diagnosed with, everything your HUSBAND has ever been diagnosed with before you ever tell me WHY you want to come in, despite my repeated attempts to get this info from you. And the fact that it's the 3rd time this WEEK you've called and done this.
When you call, two days before the start of the school year, whining about needing to get an appointment for your son's school physical, pleading with me for any possible way to make it happen because "i just forgot all about it". And when I take down a note and bug the doctor and he decides to stay late to see you and I call you back to inform you of this, you almost always have a reason as to why you can't do that time.
There's plenty more. >.> This got way too long though, but I figure I'll leave you with one incident that stuck out in my mind. This is both a customer suck and co-worker suck. Yeah.
I get a call from a woman who begins describing her mother's symptoms. Confusion, trouble walking, trouble talking, one side of her face seems droopy....
Excuse me?
You need the ER. Woman argues. She just can't leave work. Besides, she called earlier this morning (it was almost lunch) and MADE an appointment for 1:00pm. (What is WRONG with you, co-worker?) She wants to change it to 4:30pm so she doesn't have to miss much work.
Lady, your mom is having a God damn STROKE. The fact that you didn't call an ambulance is a testament to how big your inheritance must be because you are LITERALLY KILLING HER BRAIN while you faff about on the phone with me. I continue to plead with this woman to call an ambulance, get her to the ER, SOMETHING. She continues to argue about not missing work.
You'll be missing work for a FUNERAL if you don't do something soon! Good Lord!
I finally can't take it anymore and get the owner involved. She's well known in the community and is one of the doctor's wives. She's really good at handling this stuff and can usually get them to go.
Found out later she finally did take her to the ER when she called back many days later to make a hospital follow up appointment for her mom. All the while complaining about all the physical therapy, how she has to wear depends, how she can barely talk, how she can't afford all this time off work.
When I tell people that my blood pressure dropped from regularly being 140/90 to 114/65 within TWO DAYS of quitting that job, they seem amazed.
Unless they also work in healthcare. Then they're just jealous. XD
I have much more to share, but I'll try to be less...unGodly long in future posts. heh. And, just to note, despite whatever anyone tried to pull, said, or did, I constantly got told how pleasant I was to speak with and how polite I was on the phone. I had chronic care patients who would wait at my window for 10 minutes or more just because I was the one they wanted to be helped by. I always felt bad when I had to tell people the doctor wouldn't see them or accept them as a patient, even if I had a feeling they're were drug seekers. I say this only because I've made tons of appointments for myself and have almost always gotten someone who sounds like they don't give a shit and sat next to two other people who had that tone to their voice. Just know that some of us DO care, even if there's not much we can do to help you.
Just...don't describe your discharges. Please.
I actually completely forgot I even had an account here. Last time I posted, I told the tale of my first and my worst customer suck experiences. At the end of that, I mentioned how I had just started work at a doctor's office making appointments.
I'm now free from that hell-hole and holy shit I will never work at a doctor's office EVER AGAIN. I really wish I had remember my account here. I could have told these all when they happened!
Since they're not all fresh in my mind anymore, let me summarize making appointments at a doctor's office:
#1. You need your heart to live.
During any given week, I received AT MINIMUM 2-3 people who wanted to be seen for "chest pains". You do not go to your doctor for chest pains. Unless you're sick and your chest hurts from coughing so much, GO TO THE ER. We will NOT make you an appointment. We don't have the ability to treat you! And the hospital is literally a spit take from our office! Go there, you will be seen immediately!
I had one man who called and tried this. When I finally convinced him to go the ER, he says: "Fine. I was hoping to get in now since I'm here in the parking lot."
You can see the big ER sign from our parking lot. Just....what? WHAT?
#2. You are the reason the wait time is so long.
I'd get one or two phone calls a week that went along this line:
Me: (Name of clinic), this is Rabbit, how can I help you?
SC: Yes, I'd like to make an appointment to see Dr. X. I have a horrible cold and I feel just awful. (Insert an number of symptoms taken from WebMD here).
*Searches computer, sees he has ONE spot still open. It's a miracle. >.>*
Me: I can get you in at 11:30am.
SC: Oh, no. That won't work. I have a hair appointment at 10:30 and I won't be done before then.
Me: *facedesk facedesk facedesk*
All of these calls usually involved women over the age of 60. Look, I understand that you probably don't get around much and going to the hair salon makes you feel better and you get to socialize, but if you're as sick as you SAY you are (because they never SOUND sick at all) then you'll reschedule your hair appointment and come in today. More than likely, I'm going to have someone call right after you who is actually hacking up a lung and you just took the last open spot when you're probably not even sick.
A lot of people do this, because they've just seen an ad for some disease/new pill, etc and think they must have that and want to be see NOW. Because it's convenient for THEM to do it now. Doctors' schedules are set up with different times allotted depending on what you're calling for. If you're just sick with a cold or something similar, your allotted time is shorter than someone who's coming in for a complete yearly physical. Because they take forever for both the doctors and the nurses and a visit for a cold is usually quick. So if you're not honest with the appointment desk as to why you're coming in and we give you a 10 minute spot and you take up 30 minutes of the doctor's time with stupid bullshit.....congrats. Now you know why you waited so long to see him in the first place.
#3. You're the reason I don't want kids.
I don't mind kids at all. Even when they're sick and screaming their heads off, you understand that they can't help it; they feel bad and screaming is one way they communicate that. But parents......oh God. I would rather hack off both my legs and crawl a 5k directly after then take the chance of becoming like some of the parents I've met. You've got a few category of parents:
A. "My child sneeze, I think she has the bird flu I need to get in NOWNOWNOWNOW."
Always good for a laugh. In our office, if the doctor's schedule was full and a patient was insisting on being seen that day, we'd have to take all their information down, including symptoms and take it back to the doctor for review. He'd work people in if he believe they couldn't wait for another day; IE almost everyone. Because our Admin was all about more $$. There's nothing like getting the most vague descriptions of illnesses ever and taking that note back to the doctor.
There's a reason doctors thinks appointment schedulers are idiots. It's because we don't know how to translate idiot speak into rational human being speak.
B. "My child as a fever of 104.8. I'd like to make an appointment for next week."
I....wait, what? Are-are you serious? Dude, if you popped an egg over your kids' head, he could make you an omelet! Go to the ER you dimwit! And yes, I've heard stuff like this WAY TOO MANY TIMES. There's no middle ground! Either they're not sick but the parents saying their dying, or they're on death's door and the parents don't seem to realize what's going on. Good Lord.
C. "Okay, so I have an appointment for child A. Oh, wait. Do you think he could see child B, C, D, and E at the same time? They all need their physicals for school."
Well, since we aren't allowed to tell someone no according to our frothing MOREMONIES owner....
*sigh* *grabs note* Let me just ask.
No wonder the doctors keep running when they see me coming. >.>
#4. Well, I'm never hearing out of THAT ear again.
I don't know why people think that screaming, cussing and ranting and raving about things will help. Especially if it's to the appointment desk. We're just the messengers. Several of the doctors in our office did not accept new patients. After a few months of working there, they suddenly all changed their minds. And the new patients started flowing in like so much wine.
I guess a few of them were more like spoiled milk, as several doctors decided they wanted us to write up a note on each new patient, with as much background info as we could squeeze out of them so they could approve them beforehand or not.
We hated this. We could see anywhere from 200-300 people in a single day. You can imagine how that phone never. stopped. ringing. And there were THREE appointment setters. Three of us. The owner could also take appointments, but as she was, you know, the owner, she wasn't always available to do this. We tried to get you off the line as fast as we could so we could get the next person. Not to mention the people trying to check out and make follow up visits that come to our windows. So having to stop and interrogate a potential new patient was MADDENING.
And of course almost all them were prime candidates to be drug seekers. Now, let me preface this with: I understand chronic pain. I have chronic pain. I have avascular necrosis and osteochondritis dissecans in my left ankle. I've had multiple surgeries and have arthritis in that joint. I'm 33 and at any moment, my ankle could literally collapse in on itself, that is how bad it is. I get by with a built up tolerance for pain from 10 years of this, and an anti-inflammatory specifically because I don't want to become a pain med addict. So while yes, I absolutely understand that you have a very real medical issue and you absolutely need pain medication, I also understand that for every one of you that genuinely needs that medication to get by, there are 10 more people who are faking it so they can sell the meds for money or because they're addicted to it.
I can't always tell who's lying because the one who are addicted? They are good at faking it. So while I feel bad that the doctor said no, he will not take you as a patient because of the huge list of medications you're on that included an insane dosage of pain medication that should honestly have killed you long ago, there is NOTHING I can do about it.
The more you swear and scream and cry and plead, the more I think you're just another junkie looking for a fix.
It sucks for the real people who need it. And it's completely unfair. But stop taking it out on me.
#5. I am not a nurse.
I understand you're waiting at the pharmacy and you just left our office 5 seconds ago and OMGWHEREISMYPRESCRIPTION and yes, you are so very busy and can't be waiting forever but understand that in an 8 hour day, you're one of 30-40 patients that are being seen by that one doctor. Not to mention the death certificates he has to sign, the patients being seen by his nurse practitioner that she has to consult with him about, the nursing home patients he resides over that the home keeps calling about, the pharmacies that need an error fixed, the hospital calling down because one of his patients has been admitted and they need more info, DOZENS of test results that are constantly coming through that he needs to look at, evaluate, make a decision on and pass that info on to the nurses or call himself to do, freaking drug companies coming through to replenish samples that keep trying to schmooze there way into getting an audience with him, the administrator coming back to talk regarding a patient problem/complaint, the INSANE amount of calls/papers involved when someone comes in and ends up having to be admitted to the hospital and GOD HELP YOU if it's a day when he makes nursing home rounds or if you have one of the 3 doctors in our clinic who also sees patients at our VA clinic up the road.
I think you can wait 20 minutes for the nurse who hasn't had a break all day and ate a cold lunch at her desk to get 3 seconds from putting out figurative fires and helping the doctor while trying to get her own work done to call in your viagra. Because I. Can't. Help. You.
And no, I'm not transferring you back there! Do you think I want to have to walk back there to ask for something and be stared down by a group of pissed off nurses who were already angry at the world before I transferred your whiny ass to them?
#6. I have no soul.
You took it from me when you described, in detail, the smell, consistency and color of the discharge coming from your vagina/penis/anus. When you gave me the full play by play of everything your son has been through with his custody depute and how hard his life has been as you try to convince me to make him an appointment while he's in jail. When you spend 20 minutes of my time crying into the phone about how sick you've been your entire life, a full play of everything you've ever been diagnosed with, everything your HUSBAND has ever been diagnosed with before you ever tell me WHY you want to come in, despite my repeated attempts to get this info from you. And the fact that it's the 3rd time this WEEK you've called and done this.
When you call, two days before the start of the school year, whining about needing to get an appointment for your son's school physical, pleading with me for any possible way to make it happen because "i just forgot all about it". And when I take down a note and bug the doctor and he decides to stay late to see you and I call you back to inform you of this, you almost always have a reason as to why you can't do that time.
There's plenty more. >.> This got way too long though, but I figure I'll leave you with one incident that stuck out in my mind. This is both a customer suck and co-worker suck. Yeah.
I get a call from a woman who begins describing her mother's symptoms. Confusion, trouble walking, trouble talking, one side of her face seems droopy....
Excuse me?
You need the ER. Woman argues. She just can't leave work. Besides, she called earlier this morning (it was almost lunch) and MADE an appointment for 1:00pm. (What is WRONG with you, co-worker?) She wants to change it to 4:30pm so she doesn't have to miss much work.
Lady, your mom is having a God damn STROKE. The fact that you didn't call an ambulance is a testament to how big your inheritance must be because you are LITERALLY KILLING HER BRAIN while you faff about on the phone with me. I continue to plead with this woman to call an ambulance, get her to the ER, SOMETHING. She continues to argue about not missing work.
You'll be missing work for a FUNERAL if you don't do something soon! Good Lord!
I finally can't take it anymore and get the owner involved. She's well known in the community and is one of the doctor's wives. She's really good at handling this stuff and can usually get them to go.
Found out later she finally did take her to the ER when she called back many days later to make a hospital follow up appointment for her mom. All the while complaining about all the physical therapy, how she has to wear depends, how she can barely talk, how she can't afford all this time off work.
When I tell people that my blood pressure dropped from regularly being 140/90 to 114/65 within TWO DAYS of quitting that job, they seem amazed.
Unless they also work in healthcare. Then they're just jealous. XD
I have much more to share, but I'll try to be less...unGodly long in future posts. heh. And, just to note, despite whatever anyone tried to pull, said, or did, I constantly got told how pleasant I was to speak with and how polite I was on the phone. I had chronic care patients who would wait at my window for 10 minutes or more just because I was the one they wanted to be helped by. I always felt bad when I had to tell people the doctor wouldn't see them or accept them as a patient, even if I had a feeling they're were drug seekers. I say this only because I've made tons of appointments for myself and have almost always gotten someone who sounds like they don't give a shit and sat next to two other people who had that tone to their voice. Just know that some of us DO care, even if there's not much we can do to help you.
Just...don't describe your discharges. Please.
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