Why we don't make appointment calls for referrals

A few times a week a fax comes to my office, usually from a doctor who doesn’t commonly refer to me. It will include insurance information and a phone number, with a note saying, "Please call patient for an appointment."

We don’t call. My secretary puts the notes in a file for people who haven’t been seen yet, and we move on.

Why don’t we call? We used to. I’m certainly not in the habit of turning away business. What stopped us is that it became a far bigger nightmare than we expected. When my staff called to set up appointments, we found the vast majority of people hadn’t even been told they should see a neurologist. This resulted in my secretary having to deal with panicked individuals demanding to know why they needed to see a neurologist, what their tests showed, and what does a neurologist do, anyway?

In all cases except for the last one, she wasn’t able to answer their questions, which only infuriated them. When we told them to call their internist, it only made things worse.

Some even accused us of lying about getting a fax, and claimed we were just calling people randomly to drum up business. Believe me, we haven’t sunk that low.

So we don’t call anymore. We figure that if patients can answer the phone to make an appointment, they can also dial our number. Other offices may find this to be unfriendly, but we learned our lesson the hard way. At least when people call us themselves, they usually know why they’re being sent.

Communication is perhaps the most critical step in all levels of medicine. It’s best to start off on the right foot with a patient who already has some idea of what to expect.

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz. E-mail him at [email protected].

A few times a week a fax comes to my office, usually from a doctor who doesn’t commonly refer to me. It will include insurance information and a phone number, with a note saying, "Please call patient for an appointment."

We don’t call. My secretary puts the notes in a file for people who haven’t been seen yet, and we move on.

Why don’t we call? We used to. I’m certainly not in the habit of turning away business. What stopped us is that it became a far bigger nightmare than we expected. When my staff called to set up appointments, we found the vast majority of people hadn’t even been told they should see a neurologist. This resulted in my secretary having to deal with panicked individuals demanding to know why they needed to see a neurologist, what their tests showed, and what does a neurologist do, anyway?

In all cases except for the last one, she wasn’t able to answer their questions, which only infuriated them. When we told them to call their internist, it only made things worse.

Some even accused us of lying about getting a fax, and claimed we were just calling people randomly to drum up business. Believe me, we haven’t sunk that low.

So we don’t call anymore. We figure that if patients can answer the phone to make an appointment, they can also dial our number. Other offices may find this to be unfriendly, but we learned our lesson the hard way. At least when people call us themselves, they usually know why they’re being sent.

Communication is perhaps the most critical step in all levels of medicine. It’s best to start off on the right foot with a patient who already has some idea of what to expect.

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz. E-mail him at [email protected].

A few times a week a fax comes to my office, usually from a doctor who doesn’t commonly refer to me. It will include insurance information and a phone number, with a note saying, "Please call patient for an appointment."

We don’t call. My secretary puts the notes in a file for people who haven’t been seen yet, and we move on.

Why don’t we call? We used to. I’m certainly not in the habit of turning away business. What stopped us is that it became a far bigger nightmare than we expected. When my staff called to set up appointments, we found the vast majority of people hadn’t even been told they should see a neurologist. This resulted in my secretary having to deal with panicked individuals demanding to know why they needed to see a neurologist, what their tests showed, and what does a neurologist do, anyway?

In all cases except for the last one, she wasn’t able to answer their questions, which only infuriated them. When we told them to call their internist, it only made things worse.

Some even accused us of lying about getting a fax, and claimed we were just calling people randomly to drum up business. Believe me, we haven’t sunk that low.

So we don’t call anymore. We figure that if patients can answer the phone to make an appointment, they can also dial our number. Other offices may find this to be unfriendly, but we learned our lesson the hard way. At least when people call us themselves, they usually know why they’re being sent.

Communication is perhaps the most critical step in all levels of medicine. It’s best to start off on the right foot with a patient who already has some idea of what to expect.

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz. E-mail him at [email protected].