Dealing with unpleasant/rude reception staff

[Rozellelily]

I’m not really upset just more a bit angry how the “medical industry” is an industry without any repercussions for poor behaviour or need of change whereas every other industry is not immune from this (such as retail etc).

I’m glad you were able to cut through the waiting list.I hope all goes well

 

[adgloriam]

Thanks for your reply and good to see you sister in Christ !! I’ve missed the energy of your posts. There something vibrant in your writing that I appreciate.

P.S. In some countries you can present a written complaint. But, what’s the use if the secretary might be making minimum wage on a temporary contract? And what if it’s a medical doctor? One bothered me recently by being imposing, but all the other’s were fantastic. It’s best for yourself to “let it slide”, if such is an option, if you find the strength, acceptance, and indifference to go that way…Important thing is altogether your life is going well, that’s what I wish you.

God bless @Rozellelily (and do keep posting, I miss your energy )

 

[JanetF]

I worked as a medical secretary for 25+ years. The people on the other end of the line are often rude to us, demanding that we fit our schedule to theirs, and lack understanding of how medical offices work. However, my tactic was to “kill them with kindness”. No matter how testy they got with me when there were no appointments available on the day they demanded, or no matter how many times they rescheduled for frivolous reasons (Christmas shopping was my favorite to reschedule a child’s appointment for), I tried to accommodate as best I could within the parameters the practitioner outlined. That’s the key, we are working within someone else’s parameters. A Clinician may only see patients on Tues mornings and Thursday afternoons due to being in surgery the rest of the time. In those cases, the patient has to be available when the Dr has office hours. Not all offices have evening or Saturday hours. Those that do have long wait times for those hours.

My tactic as a patient is to ascertain the doctor’s availability from the beginning. Does he/she have evening Saturday hours? If so, I schedule 2-3 appointments in advance if I am going to be seen consistently. If not, then I ask for first in the am, or last in the pm, so that I miss the least amount of work. If all else fails I take what I can get. I am always friendly to the staff, because I know that they aren’t making the rules and complaining to them is like preaching to the choir, they get sick of hearing it, and they can’t do anything about it.

 

[adgloriam]

Hi @JanetF just last month I spent 30 minutes in front of a desk where 3 medical secretaries were working. I was absolutely terrified with the amount of gossiping I heard. I mean, any person saying a sentence was going to get mercilessly gossiped by that group. I thought it was, for me personally, a good reminder of how social life normally goes.

But thank God at my dentist everyone’s catholic and the secretaries are always helpful and charitable. They’ve known me since I was a kid and I consider them friends within the brief time we’ve spent together over the years.

 

[JanetF]

I was absolutely terrified with the amount of gossiping I heard. I mean, any person saying a sentence was going to get mercilessly gossiped by that group

Not all secretaries/medical front desk personal are the same so generalizing would be short-sighted. I never had time for anything more than checking people in/out and shuffling the required paperwork along. Glad to same I’ve advanced in my career and don’t have to deal with demanding people as much as in previous jobs.

 

[adgloriam]

so generalizing would be short-sighted

I appreciate what you are saying @JanetF . So I’ll explain my scope:

In most countries, elections are decided by a set of professional groups. A government seeking a second term, will increase wage/privileges of specific professional groups to guarantee the votes leading to reelection.

So -in terms of “catholic social justice”- you’ll have for example health/public servants/teachers constantly getting raises whilst most of the population is perpetually kept at minimum wage. This translates, for example, into a high school teacher making 6 to 7 times minimum wage whilst only working 20 hours per week, while most the others work 40 hours making 1 minimum wage.

That dimension translates into this: If you speak to anyone of those persons they’ll consider there’s:“no injustice at all”. To the contrary: they feel entitled to even more, despite national debt increasing and staggering unemployment rates.

Lastly, it is known that specific social-economic groups hold specific views/perspectives. A young worker entering one of those professions is peer-pressured/coerced to adopte the dominant views and values - however egotistic and distorted.

Thus is social justice/conflict, it’s strictly in that sense that I permit myself to generalize anything - because there are good and bad people anywhere.

 

[Rozellelily]

demanding that we fit our schedule to theirs

A Clinician may only see patients on Tues mornings and Thursday afternoons due to being in surgery the rest of the time. In those cases, the patient has to be available when the Dr has office hours.

This is the problem that there is such a great need > supply ratio that patients are expected to fit to the doctor or imaging schedule often without any respect for the patients own work or life circumstances.
Patients are after all customers and they should be valued but due to how the medical system is set out,they often aren’t.
It’s perfectly ok if a receptionist says “sorry there are only appointments available at xyz time” but it isn’t ok if the receptionist talks in rude tone or with attitude if the customer requests certain availabilities/times.

Some of them seem to have an attitude problem before you have even spoken to them.I understand this is because they have had interactions with other customers previously that they found “difficult” but this isn’t the way to approach customer service.
Unfortunately,at least where I live,it seems to be disproportionately in the medical industry as I have found receptionists for local council and dentists etc to be usually lovely.