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I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. My spouse has a very severe and very expensive chronic illness, and has several doctors visits a month with different doc

I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. My spouse has a very severe and very expensive chronic illness, and has several doctors visits a month with different doctors. We have had no problem with our doctors reaching us via phone. (And it works way better than any of their "healthcare portals" where nurses actually read your messages and deem all of them non-urgent and don't respond.) We absolutely do have their numbers in our contacts so their calls come through. On those rare occasions when they call from some general number behind a call switch, they leave an appropriate voicemail and we call back. They are sometimes vague with the details on voicemail because they can't be sure who will listen to it, but we are always able to get back to them. FWIW, we're in our 50s and have very frequent health issues, so this is not unknown to me by any means.

jnovek 4y ago
I’m glad this works out for you, but your experience is not universal. I have a chronic condition I am stuck with a hospital system that seems to play PBX roulette. I have a dozen of their phone numbers white listed and still miss an important call coming from a new number from time to time. I hate it, it’s completely out of touch, but it’s not something I have any control over.
- brewdad 4y ago
  If you are dealing with a doctor who won't leave a "This is Dr. So-and-so. Please call our office." voicemail, find a new doctor. Seriously.
  - amalcon 4y ago
    This is not even in the top ten criteria for selecting a doctor. If I find a doctor who knows what they are talking about, actually listens, and actually lets me make an appointment, I'm not walking away from that unicorn just because their front office has trouble with voicemail.
LTL_FTC 4y ago
Well sometimes it’s not just if they can get to you but when. For instance, I needed to see a cardiologist and the first appointment was three months out. The office offered to place me on a list where if someone cancelled, they go through this list and offer up that appointment. If they don’t reach you, however, they just keep on going through the list. Having my phone to filter calls meant I couldn’t take advantage of this as they had already moved on. These lists seem commonplace and maybe an example of what parent meant in their post as you can’t simply save the office number because the office has several outbound extensions.

jnovek 4y ago

I’m glad this works out for you, but your experience is not universal. I have a chronic condition I am stuck with a hospital system that seems to play PBX roulette. I have a dozen of their phone numbers white listed and still miss an important call coming from a new number from time to time. I hate it, it’s completely out of touch, but it’s not something I have any control over.

brewdad 4y ago
If you are dealing with a doctor who won't leave a "This is Dr. So-and-so. Please call our office." voicemail, find a new doctor. Seriously.
- amalcon 4y ago
  This is not even in the top ten criteria for selecting a doctor. If I find a doctor who knows what they are talking about, actually listens, and actually lets me make an appointment, I'm not walking away from that unicorn just because their front office has trouble with voicemail.

LTL_FTC 4y ago

Well sometimes it’s not just if they can get to you but when. For instance, I needed to see a cardiologist and the first appointment was three months out. The office offered to place me on a list where if someone cancelled, they go through this list and offer up that appointment. If they don’t reach you, however, they just keep on going through the list. Having my phone to filter calls meant I couldn’t take advantage of this as they had already moved on. These lists seem commonplace and maybe an example of what parent meant in their post as you can’t simply save the office number because the office has several outbound extensions.