I just spent a half-hour of my life hopelessly lost in the automated phone system for one of my doctors. Calls there always commence with announcing the name of the office and then telling us…
- If you know the four-digit code for the party you are trying to reach, you may enter it at any time.
And since you don't know the four-digit code and if you do, it's not the right one, you stay on the line and soon you hear various options, starting with this one which now seems mandatory if you phone any business more medical than the aspirin aisle at a Ralphs market…
- If you think you may have a life-threatening medical emergency, hang up and dial 911.
Okay, fine. I guess. But then it was like…
- If this is another doctor calling, press 1.
- If this is a pharmacy calling, please fax the prescription to us at 323-555-2398 and we will respond within 24 hours.
- If this is a pharmacy calling with a question about a prescription, press 2.
- If this is an insurance company calling with a billing inquiry, please call Ernesto in our accounting department at 323-555-2399.
- If you are a new patient and would like to set up your first appointment, please have your insurance information available and press 3.
- If you are an existing patient and wish to schedule or change an appointment, press 4.
- If you are a marsupial and are experiencing an unusually long gestation period, press 5.
All right, I made that last one up. But the ones before it are real and it doesn't matter which option you pick because once you press any key, what you get is a list of names…
- To reach the office of Dr. Shmendrake, press 1. To reach the office of Dr. Vinnieboombatz, press 2. To reach the office of Dr. Mai Eyes, press 3. To reach the office of Dr. Hackenbush, press 4…
And then it doesn't matter which of those you select because every option takes you to…
- We're sorry. You have reached a voice mailbox which has not been set up. Please call back later. Goodbye.
Apart from the marsupial option, that's what I went through for a half-hour today trying to move an appointment from 3:00 to 2:30. If they had had the marsupial option, I would have pressed it and been told, "Sorry, your species has poor brain communication between the right and left hemispheres." Like I don't already know that.
What I've learned with these systems is that if you just keep hitting "O" for Operator, you usually will reach a human being at some point. I got one, she put me on hold for 10 minutes, then came back on the line and moved my appointment. Total time I saved by moving the appointment: 30 minutes. Total time it took me to save it: 40 minutes. Oh, well. At least this system saves them from having to hire one more minimum-wage employee to route calls.
By the way: I love that phrase, "existing customer." There were moments there when I want to shout at the recorded voice lady, "If it always takes this long to get to a doctor, I won't be existing much longer." I don't care if Obamacare saves millions of lives and billions of dollars. I just want it to fix the phone systems. And the Death Panels should go after the lady who did that recording.