Why tell the receptionist why I'm seeing the doctor

[Eldermileniummam]

Why do they ask this? Is it so they can give you an appointment with the appropriate person or some other reason?

I usually don't mind but sometimes I'm embarrassed to say and never sure how specific I need to be.

Receptionists are usually sharp with people who are rude to them. If the receptionist comes across rude and unkind then ask yourself why that might be.

I teach my kids that if you are rude to someone they will likely respond in the same way. If you shout they might shout back. When they come crying saying someone shouted at me I ask how did they speak to that person first. 99% of the time it was them who shouted initially.

The alternative is that the receptionist ask if you want one of the specialist clinics and yes, a medically qualified person does triage for those who do not know and need an appointment reasonably quickly or are uncertain.

This is exactly what happens at my practice and it saves them all both time and money.

You have misunderstood my post.

“people are intelligent enough to know when they need a doctor” and, “the customer is always right” so often heard in retail/hospitality, are two sides of the same coin.

I was not in fact, referring to patients, as customers.

The alternative is every patient is booked in with the GP, every phone slot is booked up by 9am with a load of rubbish that doesn’t need a GP and the wait to see a GP is weeks. If this is already your situation vote with your feet and find a better surgery. If you live in the middle of nowhere and there’s one practice, that’s a peril of rural living.
every surgery near us uses a triage system (online and phone), every one you can be seen for an urgent issue within a day or two.
I work in a GP surgery and the general public are very bad at self diagnosis and knowing who they need to see and when!

I work in a GP surgery and the general public are very bad at self diagnosis and knowing who they need to see and when!

But a receptionist is no better! They know what services are on offer, but they do not have the qualifications to know which person needs which service - that is a medical decision.

My Drs and i think many others the receptionists are essentially triaging and identifying whether you need GP appointment, whether telephone or face to face, whether nurse or pharmacy or should you be going somewhere else. My gps run very efficiently and everyone who needs gets same day appointments.

Our practice, which is incredibly busy, doesn't do phone appointments any longer. No more 08.00 a.m. lottery.

I believe the form you fill in gets seen by a GP as first contact, and they refer you or make you an appointment accordingly.

It was starting to get ridiculous at our place, a queue of old people waiting for the surgery to open so they could beat the phone queue. Now they are more than welcome to phone in for an appointment, but they will have a form filled in over the phone by the receptionist

Not at my old practice. Some of the receptionists were breathtaking from the get go regardless of how polite the patient or carer was.

I was 8 years old and complained of toothache and a puffy face. At that age, teeth move about a lot. DM booked an appt at the dentist. You have mumps was the dentist.

When I was a child, the GP practice I was with at the time, went through a phase where every time someone rang up for to make an appointment, the receptionists asked "is it for a smear test?". Did not matter if the patient was a child or male.
"No its not she's only 9" was DM's response

Many GP receptionists are medically trained in triage to help them direct you to the most appropriate service. It's essential to share information about your condition confidentially, as this allows them to ensure you receive the right care quickly. My sister, a GP receptionist for over 20 years, received this training and once saved a life by arranging an urgent ambulance instead of a routine GP appointment.

The training involves things like care navigation/active signposting, listening out for red flags or anything urgent, and from what I remember there are strict confidentiality pathways in place. You cannot, for example, access a patient file for any reason, your name is logged with each access and you have to justify why.

So, in all GP receptionists deserve far more credit!

This thread is not about retail or hospitality. It's about health and making an appointment with a doctor.

And no, it's not the two sides of the same coin.

People don't tend to come onto forums to post about their great experiences. So it's quite weird to think you can judge a healthcare system based on a rather ranty forum

How many people go that often that they would know all this? I last saw a GP in 2018, only had the odd vaccination since then, nurses all seemed nice, but I don't know anything else about them. I don't even know which Doctor's work there now let alone their specialities or how nice they are.

You are lucky perhaps that you don't have a chronic underlying medical condition that needs monitoring. I also used to have to make apps for the children and support my elderly mother.

She pushed a calculator IN YOUR FACE??? Did it hurt???

That's lovely for you.
Other people have a chronic health condition or care for someone with a chronic health condition that means GP visits are inevitable. We aren't going there for fun.

I hope you realise how lucky you are.

My neighbour is a receptionist at a surgery. She says she needs to know to give best advice to the patient and establish how urgent an appointment is so she can book it with the most appropriate person. She’s far too busy to just be nosey and has probably heard all symptoms etc anyway!

Receptionists are trained to triage calls. If there is a particular concern about a patient, they will speak to a GP immediately. Triage exists so that the 28 year old with a bad cold wanting a same day appointment gets signposted to the pharmacy, and an 85 year old with abdominal issues asking for a routine appointment is told to come in that morning. Urgent appointments are for those that genuinely need to be seen that day, not the slightly unwell.

It's a low paid role that requires an awful lot of knowledge. It really doesn't help when people who know nothing about the health service make ridiculous comments like yours.

I’m well aware what the thread is about. I was making a comparison. One you’re welcome to disagree with, of course.

Receptionists are usually sharp with people who are rude to them. If the receptionist comes across rude and unkind then ask yourself why that might be.

Because they think they know better than you? I went into reception to chase up a referral to a particular consultant that I'd discussed with my GP. She rolled her eyes and asked me why I thought I was being referred. I explained I was switching from private to NHS, the consultant had asked me to get a GP referral and he had agreed but it looked like it had been missed. She had the cheek to say it doesn't work like that and didn't bother looking at my notes! I suggested she check the letter from the consultant that I'd emailed and it would explain everything. When she'd bothered to do that I finally got my referral done. All she had to do was read the notes and not presume she knew best!

Who said you were, but if I ring up I know nothing about them and they know nothing about me. I would be relying on the receptionist to point me in the right direction. A lot more things seem to be outsourced, dealt with by a pharmacy, physio, specialist nurses or you can bypass the GP for altogether (according to this and other threads) but I would have no idea. I could just ask for a GP appointment and expect them to make one blind, but it could well be a waste of time for me and the GP. If you know exactly why you need to specifically see the GP for, something like a chronic problem, surely it is easy enough to just tell the receptionist.

Although I have been pretty healthy my DH has some serious health problems and has treatments by the nurses at the GPs (specified by his hospital consultant) he just rings up and says can you make my 3m appointment for xyz on or about a specific date and I need the prescription a week before to make sure it's available, and it's all arranged. He was seeing the GP in the past when he was first diagnosed but now it's all done between the hospital and the GP nurses. He also has various repeat prescriptions for other problems that are all dealt with very professionally.

Who do you think you should speak to when you ring up for an appointment?

Speaking to someone and being triaged aren't the same thing...