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> I can’t remember the last time I talked on the traditional phone network or received a legitimate call Doctors and dentists. Most of the calls I get are spa

> I can’t remember the last time I talked on the traditional phone network or received a legitimate call Doctors and dentists. Most of the calls I get are spam, but then the MOST important calls I get are from doctors, labs, and dentists. I do as much as possible online of course, but not all of these professionals have good online systems and phone calls are often required. Sometimes you know what number they're going to be calling from ahead of time, but often you don't... especially if you're in a large medical network that has different offices for different specialists, etc. It's a really sad situation if you get sick and you're trying not to miss these important calls, especially when it's a long wait for a specialist and then you miss their call when they get to your name on the waiting list. This will literally cost some people their lives and legislators need to act on making spoof calls impossible -- there's no reason why anyone should be allowed to spoof a number that they can't receive calls at.

tmpz22 2y ago
> I can’t remember the last time I talked on the traditional phone network or received a legitimate call Social services are another example. Many services are county-administered and thus don't have a centralized online platform. As always our most vulnerable populations suffer the most from techno-greed. Not the families of software engineers who built the system.
thephyber 2y ago
I recently had to help my father organize his medical visits. Dealing with his healthcare providers was a bit of a pain, but it was way worse because he has stopped answering calls, primarily because of the call spam rate. I think because he owns his own business, he never fails to hand out his contact info when he is shopping, and he owns his own business (so his contact info is published by the city). His phone provider has a feature to opt into spam filtering, his phone has another, and I downloaded a spam list filtering app for him. I disabled the ringer for numbers not in his contact list. I did similar actions to reduce spam in his text messages. This was a good triage, but the damage is already done to his psyche. He doesn’t answer the phone anymore.
- codersfocus 2y ago
  Why not get a second sim? Most phones can have 2 sims active, and a phone / text only plan is dirt cheap (3-6$/m). Offer the second number with much greater discretion.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    From experience it seems to be semi-random. I've never had a single spam call on my main phone number, but friends who have got a new number get maybe 20 spam calls per day, with only having given their number to their closest friends and family. I think one factor that weighs in heavily is if your contacts download thousands of spam apps onto their phones and click YES to every permission. Then your phone number is harvested from your contact's phone and sold. TikTok, for instance, will beg me multiple times on a frequent basis to see my contacts. I don't think you can even install WhatsApp without giving it your entire phone book, can you?
    - ornornor 2y ago
      > I don't think you can even install WhatsApp without giving it your entire phone book, can you? You can. It will cry and beg and nag every chance it gets (same as when you don’t allow notifications) but it will still function without these permissions (for now). Tested with WA business on a “landline” voip number because I don’t want people to contact me via WA (and they would if I used my cell number for WA)
  - toast0 2y ago
    I don't know about most phones supporting that, probably depends on the market. But best I can tell, 80% of my spam calls are just war dialing; a new number would get war dialed just as much. Probably wouldn't get collections calls for my deadbeat cousin though.
    - paranoidrobot 2y ago
      Physical dual-SIM support is very market based (Popular in Asia). I believe most reasonably modern phones should support at least one active eSIM in addition to the physical SIM now.
unshavedyak 2y ago
Getting a new, out of state number can sometimes help. My phone is out of state due to my previous address, and 95% of spam i get is spoofed to that old town or the surrounding area. No doctors office/etc calls me from that area. It works pretty nice
- alister 2y ago
  > Getting a new, out of state number The problem with that idea is that when you make local calls, people think that you are the spammer. I too have an out-of-state number after having moved, and I can definitely confirm that when I make a local call, some people will not pick up after seeing the unusual area code on their caller ID. They told me so. There's another problem too: Even when I leave voicemail for a local business (plumber, dentist, replying to a "for sale" ad), some people will be thinking, Why does this guy need a plumber or want to buy my kayak if they live 1500 miles away? I've resorted to leaving an explanation saying "Even though my area code is XYZ, I'm in the same city as you".
  - basil-rash 2y ago
    > Even though my area code is XYZ, I'm in the same city as you The area code wouldn’t be a red flag for me, but this absolutely would.
  - Sanzig 2y ago
    I moved from British Columbia (250 area code) to the Montreal suburbs (450 area code). The one digit difference was a huge issue: the number of times businesses and government agencies would helpfully "correct" my phone number when I gave it to them or when they tried to call it meant I missed a substantial number of important phone calls. I get it, my French isn't the greatest and I have a thick Anglo accent, but "deux cinq zéro" sounds very different from "quatre cinq zéro." Eventually I just gave up and got a local number (I ported my old one to VOIP.ms and forwarded it so I wouldn't miss calls).
    - chefandy 2y ago
      Wow that seems crazy to me. I grew up in the northeastern US where even 3 decades ago, before a large expansion, we had 7 area codes within an hour drive. It would be bizarre to make such an assumption about someone, even then. When I lived in Boston, there was tons. Eastern Massachusetts alone has 339, 351, 508, 617, 774, 781, 857, and 978 as local area codes.
ranger_danger 2y ago
> I can’t remember the last time I talked on the traditional phone network or received a legitimate call I think a whole lot more people still make regular phone calls than the ones who don't. Anyone who runs a business for example is usually on the phone ALL the time.
deepGem 2y ago
It's high time someone disrupted the damn desk phone network of these hospitals. It's definitely not a technical hurdle in 2024. All calls go on the data network. You route your calls out of the main router and any call that gets routed in such manner will have the ID of the router. Tag the router id to the hospital or hotel and be done with. Is it not this simple ? With dual SIMs any phone can serve 2 lines so employees officially switch to the hospital e-sim within the hospital premises.
- bonestamp2 2y ago
  Or maybe telecommunications in general need disruption. Instead of having a number that anyone in the world can call, I should provide an abstract identity to a contact. When I approve that entity to contact me, and they get a unique identifier that only their identity can use to contact me, I decide how important their calls are to me: 1. Phone rings no matter what (doctors and other high profile contacts that I do not want to miss a call from) 2. Phone rings unless sleep mode active (family/friends). A second call within 3 minutes rings through in case of emergency. 3. Call goes straight to pre-recorded message (generic or unique to that identity) that tells them to text me their message/request (or when AI gets good enough, and it doesn't seem like it there yet for all accents, it transcribes their voicemail message). 4. Caller can leave a message but it is completely ignored by me and I don't know they left a message unless I go and check my spam folder. I can change the call handling of any identity at any time, and there should also be an email and text message layer on top of this system so the same rules apply and I choose who can contact me with those methods as well.
- Tepix 2y ago
  It's an american problem. Spam calls aren't a big issue in Germany. Complain to your government.
  - deepGem 2y ago
    It’s a huge problem in India. 10 times worse than US.
  - gryn 2y ago
sneak 2y ago
I have a dedicated phone I use solely for healthcare. The number in my main phone changes every 90 days.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > The number in my main phone changes every 90 days. I get a new starter SIM every month.
paradite 2y ago
Where I live, they moved to Whatsapp (dentist) and dedicated app (public hospitals) for messaging and notification.
maxwell 2y ago
Doctors and dentists are shifting to apps with integrated VoIP calls and dropping PSTN.
- deepsun 2y ago
  And I really like that. Instead of having to use some social network product just to receive my lab results. Or we may end up in a world when doctors send us important Tiktoks.
SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
My dentist texts me. My doctor uses MyChart, so I get notifications. Neither one calls me on the phone. Even if they do want to call, they all have to support deaf people using TTYs, and phones all support RTT (TTY to cell). There's no need to take voice calls from legitimate businesses in the US.

tmpz22 2y ago

> I can’t remember the last time I talked on the traditional phone network or received a legitimate call Social services are another example. Many services are county-administered and thus don't have a centralized online platform. As always our most vulnerable populations suffer the most from techno-greed. Not the families of software engineers who built the system.

thephyber 2y ago

I recently had to help my father organize his medical visits. Dealing with his healthcare providers was a bit of a pain, but it was way worse because he has stopped answering calls, primarily because of the call spam rate. I think because he owns his own business, he never fails to hand out his contact info when he is shopping, and he owns his own business (so his contact info is published by the city). His phone provider has a feature to opt into spam filtering, his phone has another, and I downloaded a spam list filtering app for him. I disabled the ringer for numbers not in his contact list. I did similar actions to reduce spam in his text messages. This was a good triage, but the damage is already done to his psyche. He doesn’t answer the phone anymore.

codersfocus 2y ago
Why not get a second sim? Most phones can have 2 sims active, and a phone / text only plan is dirt cheap (3-6$/m). Offer the second number with much greater discretion.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  From experience it seems to be semi-random. I've never had a single spam call on my main phone number, but friends who have got a new number get maybe 20 spam calls per day, with only having given their number to their closest friends and family. I think one factor that weighs in heavily is if your contacts download thousands of spam apps onto their phones and click YES to every permission. Then your phone number is harvested from your contact's phone and sold. TikTok, for instance, will beg me multiple times on a frequent basis to see my contacts. I don't think you can even install WhatsApp without giving it your entire phone book, can you?
  - ornornor 2y ago
    > I don't think you can even install WhatsApp without giving it your entire phone book, can you? You can. It will cry and beg and nag every chance it gets (same as when you don’t allow notifications) but it will still function without these permissions (for now). Tested with WA business on a “landline” voip number because I don’t want people to contact me via WA (and they would if I used my cell number for WA)
- toast0 2y ago
  I don't know about most phones supporting that, probably depends on the market. But best I can tell, 80% of my spam calls are just war dialing; a new number would get war dialed just as much. Probably wouldn't get collections calls for my deadbeat cousin though.
  - paranoidrobot 2y ago
    Physical dual-SIM support is very market based (Popular in Asia). I believe most reasonably modern phones should support at least one active eSIM in addition to the physical SIM now.

unshavedyak 2y ago

Getting a new, out of state number can sometimes help. My phone is out of state due to my previous address, and 95% of spam i get is spoofed to that old town or the surrounding area. No doctors office/etc calls me from that area. It works pretty nice

alister 2y ago
> Getting a new, out of state number The problem with that idea is that when you make local calls, people think that you are the spammer. I too have an out-of-state number after having moved, and I can definitely confirm that when I make a local call, some people will not pick up after seeing the unusual area code on their caller ID. They told me so. There's another problem too: Even when I leave voicemail for a local business (plumber, dentist, replying to a "for sale" ad), some people will be thinking, Why does this guy need a plumber or want to buy my kayak if they live 1500 miles away? I've resorted to leaving an explanation saying "Even though my area code is XYZ, I'm in the same city as you".
- basil-rash 2y ago
  > Even though my area code is XYZ, I'm in the same city as you The area code wouldn’t be a red flag for me, but this absolutely would.
- Sanzig 2y ago
  I moved from British Columbia (250 area code) to the Montreal suburbs (450 area code). The one digit difference was a huge issue: the number of times businesses and government agencies would helpfully "correct" my phone number when I gave it to them or when they tried to call it meant I missed a substantial number of important phone calls. I get it, my French isn't the greatest and I have a thick Anglo accent, but "deux cinq zéro" sounds very different from "quatre cinq zéro." Eventually I just gave up and got a local number (I ported my old one to VOIP.ms and forwarded it so I wouldn't miss calls).
  - chefandy 2y ago
    Wow that seems crazy to me. I grew up in the northeastern US where even 3 decades ago, before a large expansion, we had 7 area codes within an hour drive. It would be bizarre to make such an assumption about someone, even then. When I lived in Boston, there was tons. Eastern Massachusetts alone has 339, 351, 508, 617, 774, 781, 857, and 978 as local area codes.

ranger_danger 2y ago

> I can’t remember the last time I talked on the traditional phone network or received a legitimate call I think a whole lot more people still make regular phone calls than the ones who don't. Anyone who runs a business for example is usually on the phone ALL the time.

deepGem 2y ago

It's high time someone disrupted the damn desk phone network of these hospitals. It's definitely not a technical hurdle in 2024. All calls go on the data network. You route your calls out of the main router and any call that gets routed in such manner will have the ID of the router. Tag the router id to the hospital or hotel and be done with. Is it not this simple ? With dual SIMs any phone can serve 2 lines so employees officially switch to the hospital e-sim within the hospital premises.

bonestamp2 2y ago
Or maybe telecommunications in general need disruption. Instead of having a number that anyone in the world can call, I should provide an abstract identity to a contact. When I approve that entity to contact me, and they get a unique identifier that only their identity can use to contact me, I decide how important their calls are to me: 1. Phone rings no matter what (doctors and other high profile contacts that I do not want to miss a call from) 2. Phone rings unless sleep mode active (family/friends). A second call within 3 minutes rings through in case of emergency. 3. Call goes straight to pre-recorded message (generic or unique to that identity) that tells them to text me their message/request (or when AI gets good enough, and it doesn't seem like it there yet for all accents, it transcribes their voicemail message). 4. Caller can leave a message but it is completely ignored by me and I don't know they left a message unless I go and check my spam folder. I can change the call handling of any identity at any time, and there should also be an email and text message layer on top of this system so the same rules apply and I choose who can contact me with those methods as well.
Tepix 2y ago
It's an american problem. Spam calls aren't a big issue in Germany. Complain to your government.
- deepGem 2y ago
  It’s a huge problem in India. 10 times worse than US.
- gryn 2y ago

sneak 2y ago

I have a dedicated phone I use solely for healthcare. The number in my main phone changes every 90 days.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> The number in my main phone changes every 90 days. I get a new starter SIM every month.

paradite 2y ago

Where I live, they moved to Whatsapp (dentist) and dedicated app (public hospitals) for messaging and notification.

maxwell 2y ago

Doctors and dentists are shifting to apps with integrated VoIP calls and dropping PSTN.

deepsun 2y ago
And I really like that. Instead of having to use some social network product just to receive my lab results. Or we may end up in a world when doctors send us important Tiktoks.

SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago

My dentist texts me. My doctor uses MyChart, so I get notifications. Neither one calls me on the phone. Even if they do want to call, they all have to support deaf people using TTYs, and phones all support RTT (TTY to cell). There's no need to take voice calls from legitimate businesses in the US.