"Your care is important to us"

Remember my monolithic healthcare practice? As with all businesses the size of General Motors, they try to get their customers (“patients”) to do as much of the work for them, with the least amount of human involvement on their part, as possible. They worship anything “online”.

Then they enhance the experience by making it as tedious and opaque as they can.

Remember those days of yesteryear, when the day before your appointment one of the practice people would call to remind you? Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) sends you an email:

Please take note of the fact that they give you no actual, you know, information. They make you log into their site and click through at least two screens to get that.

(Actually, the orthopedics department robocalls you. Seriously, it’s a computer, inexorable and implacable, that calls within two minutes of 1800, when all their office staff has left for the day. So if you do need to speak with a human, you’re SOL until the next business day. Man, nothing says “we care” like robocalls.)

They do the same thing with any appointment follow-up—lab results, or diagnosis from X-rays: an email advising you that they have important information about your health; so go log in if you’re at all interested, because it’s sure as hell not in the email.

(Yes, I know, they’re concerned about privacy. I’m concerned about dealing with an organization with enough employees to fill their own ZIP code, supposedly focused on providing healthcare, who go to great lengths to exhibit all the warmth of an ATM. Also, they have no problem with leaving those robomessages on voicemail or answering machines; there goes your privacy argument.)

The other day I wanted to do some follow-up of my own, so I used the site’s “talk with your care team” function. (Yes, that’s what they call it.) Here’s what they show you when you initiate the application:

Not only do they have the disclaimer that you have to listen to with any medical-related IVR system, but you cannot get to the message screen until you swear that you’re not a danger to yourself or others.

Does losing the will to live while trying to navigate their kludgy systems count?