LESSONS LEARNED AT THE ANSWERING SERVICE

“And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil: the same is Micaiah the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.” (2 Chronicles 18:7)

Sometimes life takes some strange turns! Many of you know I spent over twenty-five years as a full-time Assemblies of God minister. (I’m still an Assemblies of God minister, and maybe someday I’ll be doing that full-time again.) I never thought I would be a telephone answering service operator, but I’ve now been doing that for eight months. When I first took the answering service job, a pastor friend of mine told me, “When one of my kids is sick, and I call the doctor’s office, and I get the answering service, I HATE IT! I say, ‘what do you mean the answering service?; I WANT A DOCTOR!’” In the past eight months, I’ve learned that a LOT of people say that when we answer, or they say a lot worse!

Boy, you learn SO MUCH when you work at a telephone answering service. Ninety percent of our clients are either doctor’s offices, clinics, or hospitals. Trust me, everybody at my place of work can name four doctors we answer for who are absolutely outstanding human beings. Some of those folks have touched me so much, just in a working relationship over the phone, that if any of them passed away, I’d go to the funeral! Each of us can also name four doctors we answer for who are nasty, mean and cruel, and of whom we cannot understand why they became doctors...I guess the money. They need to learn that line from the old Three Stooges movie, “For DUTY and HUMANITY!”. And most of the rest are somewhere in the middle.

Listen, here’s some really practical advice before you choose a doctor for yourself or a pediatrician for your children:

1. Meet with the doctor and ask some tough questions. WHO covers for him or her when the doctor is not on call? It it another doctor, is it a Physicians’ Assistant, is it a Nurse Practitioner, or is it a Nurse? (Or is it ANYONE? Once in a great while there’s a doctor who doesn’t have much of any coverage!) Does the practice have weekend hours? Does the practice have evening hours? Does the practice have early morning hours? Does the practice have “walk in clinics” or are appointments always required? Can you page the doctor on off hours if a prescription has not been called in? (Some doctors expressly forbid this.) Is it possible to speak to a doctor or nurse during the lunch hour if you have an emergency? (With most offices, it IS, but with a few it is NOT.) Try to get some references on the doctor. (There are some sites on line that you can check.) Some doctors have a great “bedside manner” on the phone. Some treat the operators like dirt. What’s the gut feeling you get from the doctor or his secretarial staff? If it’s negative, that’s PROBABLY ACCURATE!

2. When you call a doctor’s office and get the answering service, please don’t shoot the messenger. Some callers sigh angrily. Some sarcastically yell, “Oh GREAT!!!!” Some say, “That doctor is NEVER there when I need him” Some ask things like, “The brochure says the office closes at 5:00. It’s Friday at 4:53. WHY ARE THEY CLOSED?!” (Think about it, they’re human. If it’s July and a beautiful summer day out and your a doctor who wants to go sailing, wouldn’t you go home twenty minutes early?) That telephone answering service operator is trying do do his or her job, and that doctor and his staff are human.

3. Please don’t get angry when the answering service operator asks you a series of questions. We are required to do this. Usually we need to get the caller’s name, the patient's name, the phone number, and the symptoms. Ninety percent of the time, the answering service operator is going to ask, “Date of birth?” I am amazed that MOST MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ARE NOT PREPARED TO GIVE US THE PATIENT’S DATE OF BIRTH! You should always have that information ready when calling in! Also, if there are several doctors in the practice, we will ask, “Which doctor does he usually see?” or “Who is her P.C.P.?” There are reasons for all this. Some practices may have three John Smiths or Jane Does. It’s important to match the date of birth with the right person, for instance.

4. We usually tell callers a doctor will call back within fifteen minutes and a nurse will call back within thirty minutes. (We do follow up if that doesn’t happen.) I get a chuckle, though, that some people will angrily call and say, “It’s been FOURTEEN MINUTES and that doctor HAS NOT CALLED!!” Have a little patience! Last weekend, one practice had a surgeon on call. Some folks were calling upset asking “Why hasn’t he called?!” In most cases, less than an hour had elapsed. The doctor was IN SURGERY. As soon as he came out of surgery, he called the answering service and called back those who were waiting for his calls.

Listen, it’s Thanksgiving time. My daughter Amy who happens to be a nurse and who has made several medical missionary trips to Haiti can tell you all about medicine in the third world! We take SO much for granted in America. I have also been to rural Haiti twice. The group I traveled with ran medical clinics. People would come on foot, on horseback and on donkey for MILES AND MILES to see a doctor! Many had not seen a doctor in many year. Many had deplorable medical conditions.

Yes, we can be thankful that overall we have excellent medical care in America.
Thank God for that, and please be a little more patient when you call a doctor’s office and get the answering service!