Part 4: The Top Five Reasons Why Patients Are Dissatisfied

In a recent patient survey in our medical group, there were five areas of dissatisfaction that were identified. This is the 4th of the five reasons, but this is nearly identical to the second one: Provider's ability to return your calls in a timely manner (10.6%)

4. Office phone calls not answered promptly (10.1%)

On some days, we may see upwards of 450 patients in our pediatric practice. For each patient see, there may be twice as many phone calls directed at the dozen or so medical providers in the practice. These calls must be answered by our staff. During the morning rush, when the phone banks open, we have about eight people answer our lines until things quiet down. Our medical group carefully tracks how long people wait on hold so that we can create bench marks to do better.

I think we do pretty well in our particular office, but other practices within our medical group may not be doing as well for this to make the top five. Most of our patients are able to get through, speak to a competent human, and have their issue addressed. Although we do have to put people on hold from time to time, depending on their request, we try to limit the idle time.

No one, I repeat, no one likes to be on hold. I am probably the worst person to be put on hold. I answer postings on the WebMD ENT board; I work on Blogs; I play solitaire. I count the minutes. What I don't do is listen to that awful music, which always seems to be Spanish Eyes or another tune that I hate. Tunes that you hate always result in the worst case of ear worms -- tunes that repeat over and over in your brain; tunes you cannot shake the rest of the day. Of course, if you didn't have the music, you would think you were disconnected and call back, getting a busy signal because they have you on hold.

When you are ill, being on hold makes you sicker. This is just a personal theory. First, you are already not feeling well. You listen to Spanish Eyes a few hundred times and life is no longer worth living. Once your call is finally answered, it is all that you can do to not take it out on the overworked person who was unlucky enough to get your call. If the person who answers the phone is (a) courteous, (b) efficient, and (c) accommodating to your schedule, you are unbelievably gracious.

xOur brief message that the patient hears first informs them of our "busy phone times" and suggests that they call back later if they can. Most people hope the other people call back, so you will not have to wait. Basically, most people wait.

Almost all doctors' offices have that disclaimer: "If you have an emergency, hang up and call 911." We have that announcement, but fortunately very few people with true life threatening emergencies call us first. The message is for those rare people who decide to remain on hold with a severed limb or something.

One of my patients told me that she starts calling immediately at 8:00 AM on Monday mornings if her kids need to be seen. If she gets a busy signal, she hits redial over and over until she gets through. I bet she is not the only one that does that. She prides herself in getting through relatively fast by this method. One woman called on her cell phone, was placed on hold. She was still on hold when she walked into our office, so when they answered her call, she was already sitting in the waiting room. I loved that story.

I had an important flight canceled one time. As soon as the announcement was made, hundreds of people ran like cattle, dragging bags and kids by the arm, to try and get on the next flight at another remote gate. I was second in line when they canceled the flight, which placed me near the end of the mob rushing to the new gate to be booked on the next flight. Perhaps out of fear of being trampled, I dialed the 800 number for reservations and booked my seat before those sweaty losers even made it around the corner. I don't know why I told you this story, but I love this one, too.

We don't have complicated voice mail announcements in our office. I find these worst than being on hold with Spanish Eyes:

"If you would like an appointment, press 1. If you would like a refill of an existing medication, press 2. If you have a question for our advice nurse, press 3. If you are calling about the status of a referral in progress, press 4. If you would like to speak to the receptionist about an existing appointment, press 5. If you have a severed limb, please hang up and call 911. If you would like these messages repeated, press 10"... and so on.

Maybe it is my short attention span, but by the time I get to the end of those voice mail messages, I either forgot the number I should have pushed, or NONE of those choices are really what I want. Usually, I just hang up, put my severed limb in a bag of ice, and call back later.

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