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Anyone else hate doctor's telephone appointments?

DeeMo

Hi, 

I'd be grateful to know I'm not alone or to have any of your advice!  Does anyone else autistic really struggle with the GPs/doctors wanting to do all their consultation on phones? For me, as someone autistic it is a little like mental torture.

You ring up the practice, say you need to speak to a doctor. Then the practice book you an 'appointment' for a doctor to ring on a specific day 'sometime' between 9-5pm! First of all, the unpredictable element of the phone call, with no timed slot makes my heart race all day waiting for the call. Then when they ring, understanding someone you have never met with audio only, no visual signals or faces for aiding understanding. Then also just the feeling of not being 'seen' or listened too when it is a phone call.Not the most reassuring. They totally rely on your linguistic skills to explain your symptoms, and without seeing you, or examining I always worry that they will miss something.

Then just the plain indignity which I think is universal for neurotypicals and autistic of possibly having to talk about your intimate health problem to your doctor , speaking on a  mobile on a street corner!  Unless you are willing to stay by your phone all day in the privacy of your home. Or the impossibility for people who work like myself and can't answer the phone. The list goes on.

I have tried to ask the GPs for reasonable adjustments and have a face to face appointment. But every time I have to explain myself again from the beginning each time. And then that's only for routine appointments. For urgent appointments, its still a ring back. I have physical disabilities and issues that demand more regular input from doctors, but due to it being so autistic unfriendly, I am hardly in touch. 

Thanks Relaxed️

  • I hate doctors phone calls your in the queue for ages so you hang up and then redial and it's like that for ages

    Really frustrating

    I don't do great on the phone so I find this stressful experience

    But I don't like doctors in general they never seem to want to help

  • I hate them.. but I hate my phone.. but I do miss a good gp appointment 

  • Can't stand phone appointments generally. I can't even stand phoning the GPs surgery to make the appointment, especially if I have to try multiple times before I can through (often only to be told that all the appointments have already gone anyway). I'm terrible at understanding what people are saying at the phone at the best of times, and its worse when I'm in a noisy place. Plus I speak pretty quickly and when I'm nervous I have a tendency to gabble so they don't seem to catch half of what I say anyway, made worse if I'm speaking quietly because I'm trying to be discreet and don't want to be overheard. Our surgery gives you a specific time, but then says the doctor might actually two hours before or after that time, which is ludicrous. I spend the whole day terrified that I'm going to be out or on the loo when they call or my phone won't have signal. It makes me so anxious. I've emailed the surgery and begged for a face to face appointment because I couldn't deal with the phone call, but the only response I got was I needed to phone the surgery to book a phone appointment to discuss it Disappointed

  • I find talking to doctors stressful full stop!

    But yes, all those hurdles too... the constant redial, redial, redial to get through at 8:00 in the morning.  Our surgery will not book appointments at all.  Everyone has to go through the ordeal of constant redial at 8:00.

    Then the receptionist wants to know why.  You don't have to tell them, but if you don't you'll end up bottom of the list even if it's urgent.  I find it so hard to get out what's wrong to anyone, never mind putting me through it twice.

    Then, whilst for me the telephone spares other inconveniences - like the sensory experience of sitting about the waiting room with the medical smells setting off my phobias, no you don't know WHEN they are ringing back so I am super nervous and unable to do anything else until they call.

    Then the ordeal of having to tell the doctor again when you have difficulty in describing physical sensations.... 

    Never mind all the other aspects of my medical phobias involved here...

    But it's like that for many people, not just us.  A lot of people can't call at 8:00 because at 8:00 they are commuting to work or already at work where their boss won't expect them to spend their first hour and half on constant redial on their phones.  You almost need to take a day sick leave just to phone a doctor.

    Then there are the frail elderly like my mum who is so deaf she can't hear every other word said to her on a phone and who is loosing some of her speech due to her physical problems - they NEED to physically see her.  But they won't!

  • in reply to Ben

    Actually, you don't have to.  Many surgeries get you to do that so they can prioritise, but the receptionist doesn't have to know and you have a right just to ask for the appointment.

  • I find phones very stressful and mainly only use it as an outgoing thing. 

    If I am receiving a call then I will let it ring out and have to compose myself before first verifying the number of the person who has called from who-called and then I will call them back and assume the role of the idiot they can expect very little from.

    Apologies that this is of no help.

  • I don't like having to reveal the nature of my ailment to the surgery clerk when I'm trying to book an appointment;  that is between me and the practitioner.

    Ben

  • In answer to your rhetorical headline question: yes.  

  • PS- When I am complaining about doctor's only doing call backs, my surgery does this for routine appointments too. So for instance, if you had a non urgent appointment to talk about something which is still very important to you ( eg your coping with pain) , you would still be given an appointment for a call back with no time slot. Only a specific day. So you can see how waiting all day by a phone might not only be anxiety provoking for someone with autism, but also not very dignified! Nothing like, putting a time slot in your diary to physically see a doctor, and have the dignity of knowing when you are going to speak to them, and ready to do so.