EVERY time I call my doctor, I get the answering service. Because it seems I only think to call them during their lunch hour. Not just my GP, either - I just called my gastroenterologist and got the same thing.
The answering service is not allowed to connect me to the doctor’s voicemail. They’re not allowed to take a message. They’re only allowed to say “no one is in” and connect me to “a nurse” (not a nurse in my GP’s practice) I suspect if I have an emergency.
If I call during hours when they’re in, I can leave a voicemail for my doctor (well nurse practitioner or my gastro doc’s assistant). They never pick up the phone when they are “in” but I don’t expect them to.
Why the heck can’t I leave them a message when they are not in the office?
And this is two doctors in Cleveland. Is this a widespread thing?
I’ve had some doctors that allowed you to leave a message off-hours and some that didn’t. In the latter case, it was either an answering machine message simply telling you to call back when they’re open (or go to the ER if it’s an emergency). Sounds like their “answering service” is performing the same function. Maybe it’s done to minimize liability when patients call and they’re spurting blood from a shoulder-stump? (*Do *doctors have any liability when they’re not reachable in case of emergency?)
I don’t think this is widespread. I haven’t been connected to an answering service since … ever. If I call my doctor outside of business hours, I just get a recording that tells me what business hours are and that, if I can’t wait for business hours, there’s an Urgent Care in the same building I can avail myself of.
My dentist’s office number has a recording that says if you have an emergency call a different number, which takes me to what I presume is his cell phone voice mail, because he has returned my calls the two times I’ve used it in less time than he could practicably have been contacted by a human message-taker.
Maybe it is different on adult side but I have a hard time imagining a generalist where you cannot get ahold of a doctor or nurse who can talk to you in a reasonable period of time.
For us an office nurse is available to discuss issues at a moment’s notice during office hours and a physician is on call returning call hourly until bedtime (also available to be paged for an emergency - as defined by the parent - for a more immediate response or after bedtime). Some practices have a nurse on call as the first line and only get passed through ones that fall out of the triage guideline protocols. The answering service takes the message and hands it off, either when we call in hourly or as a page according to the guidelines we have given them. Our practice also is a bit odd and has a long standing tradition of having a “phone hour” (okay 45 minutes nowadays) when docs are just picking up phones to answer general questions first thing in the morning six days a week. We know that is our little odd thing to do, not widespread, but it is the way the practice has done it from decades before I ever joined, patient families appreciate it, and it is part of our identity. The rest I think is pretty standard bill of fare.
As part of our big multi-specialty group we are also promoting a version of e-mail access as well coupled with on-line access to limited portions of your or your child’s (pre-adolescent) chart.
I do not think a no message can be left answering service is widespread either.
I’ve never had the answering service not contact the doctor on call for a return call. However, in the morning or during lunch there is a service (or simply a message) that says they’re closed and when to call back. During office hours the front desk simply answers and connects me to a nurse, takes a message etc.
The sprog’s pediatrician has a nurse service that’s available after hours. If something happens, you call the after-hours number and leave a message. A nurse calls back in a few minutes to do the basic triage and give instructions to the parent on how to proceed. It saves a lot of worry and trips to the ER, not to mention the docs’ frazzled nerves.
DSeid, the VA is rolling out an e-mail like system that sounds similar to what you’ve got. I use it to communicate with my primary care doc. It saves the hassle of phone tag. The VA also has an online system that I can use to review information. It’s nice.
I’m not sure how this works in every town, but I know in my small-town-with-large-hospital, if you need to get in touch with one of your doctors after hours or on weekends, you call the local hospital’s switchboard and ask to be put in touch with the doctor-on-call for whatever group the doc is in. Sometimes you get your doc, sometimes you get one of his partners.
I’m not sure how that works if the doctor is not affiliated with the hospital. Around here, most (but not all!) have a connection to the hospital. All my doctors do, so that’s how I find them.
I’d be super pissed if I had no way to find my doc in case of emergency. I’ve only had to track him down once, but it was important - my insulin pump had broken over the weekend, and I needed prescriptions to cover me until I got a new pump on Tuesday. I’m not sure what I would have done if I couldn’t have found him. It seems like a real waste of emergency services to go to the ER to get a prescription filled.
I don’t recall ever talking to my doctor on the phone. There isn’t even an option in the phone tree - you leave a message for the doctor’s assistant, and if they feel like it, they will call you back. Never the doctor. Which leads to the irritating situation of telling your problem to the assistant’s voice mail when it’s really none of her business what your problem is.
It’s also hard to get a call back if you don’t say and spell your full name, give your date of birth, and sign over your first born.
I’ve spoken to doctors on the phone. In fact, I’ve had a couple of doctors call ME up to check up on me. This hasn’t happened very often, and yes, I was in pretty bad physical shape. But it does happen.
I think that basically, your doctor is trying to limit his obligation to follow up on your message. They don’t want you to leave a message, then wait for the doctor to call back. They want you to solve your problem in the quickest way possible (go to emergency room). If your problem can wait, then you can call back (putting the obligation on you). I don’t think I have ever known my doctor’s email, likely for the same reason. They don’t like to have these extended conversations because they don’t get paid for them. They only way they get paid is when you come in to the office.
