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>My local hospital telephones with private numbers, which is the only reason I cannot completely block them and thus cannot use a whitelist. Can anyone with mo

>My local hospital telephones with private numbers, which is the only reason I cannot completely block them and thus cannot use a whitelist. Can anyone with more context explain to me why a rational person decided on this? It's Biblically frustrating for me because 9/10 withheld numbers are spammers or scammers and I don't want to pick up the phone to them but 1/10 it's my local doctor's surgery who I can't ignore. It's such an antisocial thing for doctors of all people to do, but it seems to be common enough people across the world have to deal with it.

wiredfool 5y ago
Probably patient privacy and the intersection with domestic abuse.
mschuster91 5y ago
Mostly because there is usually a bunch of phones in a practice (and a shitload in hospitals), and you don't want patients to call back to for example the MRT/CT lab. The other problem is privacy... imagine a woman consulting her ob/gyn about an abortion. The ob/gyn calls the woman back, and suddenly the abusive husband sees the phone number of the ob/gyn practice on the incoming call log.
- drugstorecowboy 5y ago
  While I do understand this reasoning somewhat I don't know why its only limited to hospitals and doctors. I can imagine thousands of situations where this abusive partner would have a problem with an incoming number hospital or not. I'm not sure its a great idea to structure our communications around hypothetical abusive people, a call directly to the number that is provided from the organization you provided it to is private enough.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > I'm not sure its a great idea to structure our communications around hypothetical abusive people Domestic violence is far from hypothetical [1], it is the sad reality we live in. Medicine in particular has a responsibility by the Hippocratic Oath to avoid causing harm, and the laws (e.g. HIPAA) reflect that responsibility. [1] https://www.socialsolutions.com/blog/domestic-violence-statistics/ https://www.socialsolutions.com/blog/domestic-violence-stati...
    - drugstorecowboy 5y ago
      So, women are abused sometimes therefore doctor's must mask their numbers due to the Hippocratic Oath and HIPAA? Do the doctor's have to disguise their voices as well? Maybe they should talk in code. I won't pretend to be an expert on HIPAA but I very strongly doubt that calling from random numbers is part of it. Wouldn't the random calls look suspicious to the abuser in this circumstance? IMHO something like this would cause more abuse than just I dunno.. lying about why the doctor's office called.
      - mschuster91 5y ago
        > Wouldn't the random calls look suspicious to the abuser in this circumstance? No, precisely because random calls from suppressed numbers are so common for spam.
jrowley 5y ago
Physicians want to be accessible only via specific channels, to protect their time and to ensure there is consistent process across patients. Most of the time as a patient you can’t call them directly, unless you work through the page operator or you plan ahead with them on predefined phone number and time.
- criddell 5y ago
  > to protect their time Then they should understand why people ignore calls coming from unverified numbers.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Unless they're using their personal cell phone, this should be a basic feature of the hospitals phone system, it is a feature decades old. No reason the caller ID should be set to the DID of the doctor.

wiredfool 5y ago

Probably patient privacy and the intersection with domestic abuse.

mschuster91 5y ago

Mostly because there is usually a bunch of phones in a practice (and a shitload in hospitals), and you don't want patients to call back to for example the MRT/CT lab. The other problem is privacy... imagine a woman consulting her ob/gyn about an abortion. The ob/gyn calls the woman back, and suddenly the abusive husband sees the phone number of the ob/gyn practice on the incoming call log.

drugstorecowboy 5y ago
While I do understand this reasoning somewhat I don't know why its only limited to hospitals and doctors. I can imagine thousands of situations where this abusive partner would have a problem with an incoming number hospital or not. I'm not sure its a great idea to structure our communications around hypothetical abusive people, a call directly to the number that is provided from the organization you provided it to is private enough.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > I'm not sure its a great idea to structure our communications around hypothetical abusive people Domestic violence is far from hypothetical [1], it is the sad reality we live in. Medicine in particular has a responsibility by the Hippocratic Oath to avoid causing harm, and the laws (e.g. HIPAA) reflect that responsibility. [1] https://www.socialsolutions.com/blog/domestic-violence-statistics/ https://www.socialsolutions.com/blog/domestic-violence-stati...
  - drugstorecowboy 5y ago
    So, women are abused sometimes therefore doctor's must mask their numbers due to the Hippocratic Oath and HIPAA? Do the doctor's have to disguise their voices as well? Maybe they should talk in code. I won't pretend to be an expert on HIPAA but I very strongly doubt that calling from random numbers is part of it. Wouldn't the random calls look suspicious to the abuser in this circumstance? IMHO something like this would cause more abuse than just I dunno.. lying about why the doctor's office called.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > Wouldn't the random calls look suspicious to the abuser in this circumstance? No, precisely because random calls from suppressed numbers are so common for spam.

jrowley 5y ago

Physicians want to be accessible only via specific channels, to protect their time and to ensure there is consistent process across patients. Most of the time as a patient you can’t call them directly, unless you work through the page operator or you plan ahead with them on predefined phone number and time.

criddell 5y ago
> to protect their time Then they should understand why people ignore calls coming from unverified numbers.
rootusrootus 5y ago
Unless they're using their personal cell phone, this should be a basic feature of the hospitals phone system, it is a feature decades old. No reason the caller ID should be set to the DID of the doctor.