Call centers for anything medical is beyond annoying. I have dealt with both St. Joe's and Scott&White for referrals, billing, surgery scheduling, etc. The most frustrating part to me is the phone tag game.

Office calls and leaves a voicemail.
I call back and spend 5 min going through all of the prompts to finally get to talk to a person. Person then has to verify everything again. Get put on hold. Call center tries to track down person who left me a message. Said person is not available. Leave a message and hope I am able to answer right away when they call back.

I had a recent experience with TheMedNorth that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

My doctor ordered an MRI last December. His office warned me that getting in at TheMedNorth was slow. This was a follow up that I was not expecting to see anything, so I didn't worry too much about it.

What surprised me was that it took 8-1/2 weeks for the philippina (at least thats how she sounded) to call me to schedule!!! The order was wrong, so she couldn't schedule. She said she would call the doctor to get it corrected.

At my next appointment a couple weeks later, I inquired about the MRI order. The scheduler never bothered to call!! They re-ordered the MRI, but with the local open MRI. I heard from them (open MRI) the next day. They had openings every day, evening and Saturday, no delays or waiting.

Before I got the MRI, I ran into an MRI tech. I asked why there were such delays to get scans done. She replied "I have openings almost every afternoon,…" She offered me some times and actually called my doctor to get the order.

After finally getting it scheduled, the outsourced scheduler called me to 'preregister'. I was not free to take the call at that time, I said I'd call back.

When I called back, a different operator answered. She told me I was not her assigned case, she wouldn't help me, and hung up.

After getting my MRI done I got a (dis)satisfaction survey. I gave poor marks. I got a call back from a local supervisor ti hear my concerns. She was kind and empathetic, but assured me that the schedulers being outsourced was a corporate CHI move and locally it could nit be changed, but she was going to send my complaints up the chain.

I consider myself very fortunate in that I was fairly certain of what would be the result of the scan, I am intelligent, I have navigate around the system when need arises.

All this said, I cannot in good conscience recommend the CHI system: it is broken and has been since they changed the St Joseph core values from Service, Reverence and Stewardship to DEI and ESG in 2017.

Here it seems that half the people have issues with St. Joes and the other half with S/W.

The whole medical industry in the U.S. is horrific in its service to its patients. Not sure where the problem is but I suspect they are being overwhelmed with work and a lack of doctors and nurses.

And it looks to get worst going forward.

"The Association of the American Medical Colleges (AAMC) predicts a shortage of anywhere between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians in the U.S. by 2034. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this trend, placing immense pressure on healthcare systems. Additionally, more than two of every five practitioners will be 65 or older within the next ten years."

Sometimes you just feel like taking out your own appendix and be done with it.

The problem is a glut of administrators and government interference. The healthcare is not terribly overburdened at this time, it is largely underutilized, due to access; either stories like mine above, or un/underemployed people who don't have insurance, cannot afford copays, don't have time iff, or can't afford to take time, or a combination of all of these

Stories like yours are why I have become a "squeaky wheel" advocating for my medical needs. I am almost always very polite and do not take out anything on the people that are answering the phone. However, I ask doctors what the anticipated time is to get results, referral calls, etc. After that time, I start calling. Because there are so many people involved now, no one knows when things happen (or don't happen) unless they are made aware. For offices that are booking far out, I call regularly to check for cancelations. More often than not, you can get what you need much faster than waiting around on them.

Please, please, please advocate for yourself!

I agree with Dubi that the poor customer service is mostly the product of outsourcing by administration to optimize cash flow and decrease easily trainable labor costs. With Buccees, Costco, and local pharmacies offering relatively generous starting pay for unskilled labor it is hard to retain the front desk folks. I know the overwhelming majority of actual health care providers give excellent service once you can navigate the myriad web of referrals, pre-authorizations, etc.

Overload is a significant issue on my level as a primary outpatient pediatrician. I sure as heck am not being underutilized. I am seeing 30ish patients most every day (mid 20s is my happy spot), + multiple phone calls, labs, referral letters, school paperwork, insurance hassles etc. It is rewarding spiritually and financially but exhausting as well.

I work for a medical system in Houston on their business operations side. Sadly the healthcare system overall is wildly inefficient, dirty as heck, and frankly full of clinical minded people making business operations decisions who have absolutely no skill set or critical thinking skills in a business or operations view.

Additionally there are a lot of other different smaller drivers and influences that cause issues but I think the main issue is the definition of who is really the customer to a hospital is not understood well by most people.

In reality, the hospital's main customer is not the patient. In terms of a "normal business setting" the patient is really the "product". The doctors and nurses are the specialized skill / specialized machines that produce or "manufacturer" the "product" to its final "healthy" form. In addition, I should mention that some doctors are really viewed as valuable "sales people" by the hospital as they drive volumes of patients to this or that hospital they work with.

The real customer to a hospital is a combo of government contracts with Medicare (ie problems in this area is the real reason why TCH had to lay off 5% of its workforce lately) and (probably even more so) the healthcare insurance companies.

So we wonder why the general public can often not get good customer service? To me it's because they are not really the customer that pays the bills for the hospital. It's the healthcare insurance companies. So a hospital is supposed to focus on the patient but in reality money talks and since the patient is not the main payer, they incorrectly get focused on pleasing the healthcare insurance companies demands or specific "critical" doctors rather than the patient.

Seen plenty of department director levels make some dumb business decisions because either they wanted to temporarily increase the revenue (but incur high costs in the longer run), please the selfish (and childish) whims of a "critical patient volume driving doctor" or because "my friend" the medical manufacturer rep said it's a "good" idea (ie they were hood winked or sometimes kickbacks are at play here too).

Sorry I am rather cynical when it comes to these things from what I have seen.