You may recall that the landline at the Mansion is worse than two tin cans connected by twine. We need a repair from AT&T to get that phone line working without static so bad that a message is practically indecipherable.
If you already know what the caller is calling about, you can kind of listen intently, and guess right about 50 percent of the time. Like when CeilingReds calls for Farmer H. You know they're either saying a prescription is ready, or it's delayed. So I send Farmer H a text about it, and he calls or goes by CeilingReds to ask them.
There was some kind of message a couple days ago for Farmer H about an appointment. I knew he had one at 9:40 on Tuesday. So I figured that was it. He left in plenty of time for his appointment, and was planning on meeting up with The Pony later to have lunch at a Chinese buffet.
Around 1:30, there was another message. I couldn't understand the phone number our answering machine announces. When I tried to listen to the message around 2:30, it sounded like Farmer H had missed an appointment. According to the "missed call" info on the phone, this was from over in Bill-Paying Town, and not in School-Turn Town where Farmer H had gone to his 9:40 appointment.
I tried to listen to the message from several days ago. It was quite garbled due to the connection. But it sounded like Farmer H had an appointment at 10:30. Also on Tuesday. The call was from a recording, asking Farmer H to press 1 to confirm his appointment, or press 2 to say he couldn't make it. That went on three or four times, then the recording said that since they couldn't understand his response, that Farmer H should call their office to confirm.
Well. Needless to say, though I'll say it anyway, FARMER H DID NOT CONFIRM THAT APPOINTMENT.
The message from 1:30 was also a recording, saying that Farmer H should call the office to reschedule his appointment, and that he might be charged up to $25 for missing the previous appointment. I sent Farmer H a text to call them.
When I finally talked to Farmer H, who had called that office with the phone number from whence the call came, he said that nobody answered the phone. They were not in the office. He said it's a cardiologist he saw a year ago, and this was an annual follow-up appointment.
I asked why they keep calling the house phone and not his cell phone. Farmer H said he doesn't know. His pharmacy also does that. No matter how many times he's told them to call his cell phone.
Here's the thing. If the recording asks you to confirm your appointment, and you DON'T CONFIRM THE APPOINTMENT, why do they still think you will be showing up for the appointment??? Do they not understand the meaning of CONFIRM?
It's not like $25 will put us in the poorhouse. It's just the idea that Farmer H gave no indication he would be showing up for an appointment that was scheduled a year ago. So why should he be charged for the appointment? I think the doctor's office personnel should have assumed by the lack of a response that Farmer H was not coming, and given that time slot to someone else. Then if Farmer H showed up anyway, it would be his own fault if he got bumped, and had to reschedule.
Otherwise, what is the point of that CONFIRMATION phone call?
How long have you been having trouble with the phone line and why hasn't AT&T done anything about it yet??
ReplyDeleteWhy not contact all your "people" and tell them to remove the home line number from their files and use only the cell phones? it might be a lot of work to get that done, but at least once it's done you won't need to try deciphering the answering machine messages anymore.
River,
ReplyDeleteI have mentioned this phone issue many times over the past couple years. Farmer H was the holdup. He kept saying he needed to check the line with a contraption he has, to see if it was inside the house, or outside. He finally did that during the Christmas/New Year holiday time, and determined it's a problem with the lines outside the Mansion. It is just now Jan 4, so I'm waiting to make the call after the surge of first-of-the-year repair tickets calm down.
All our "people" HAVE been told to use our cell phone numbers.
I have wondered the same thing! While we were in Atlanta, our family practice called to verify an appointment for a blood draw on The Patient's phone. He didn't check his phone immediately after the surgery, with morphine running throug his blood stream and did not CONFIRM either. We are right, you and I! We should launch a campaign to address this!
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteExactly! If you don't confirm, it means you're not coming! This is like the car rental company that knows how to TAKE a reservation, but doesn't know how to KEEP a reservation, and has no car for you when you get there! That office needs to look up the definition of CONFIRM.
If the goal is to find out if The Patient will be there, then a lack of response should mean that he WON'T.