A Conversation Analytic Study of Calls to Medical Reception for Doctor’s Appointments

ABSTRACT

A call to medical reception is regularly an entry point into primary health care services. Telephone-mediated interactions between patients and receptionists have been found to temper demand for doctor’s appointments and influence patient satisfaction ratings; yet little is known about what exactly happens to produce those effects. The present study asks how medical receptionists respond to telephone-mediated appointment requests. Audio recordings of 18 calls between receptionists and patients at a New Zealand University health care practice were collected, transcribed and examined in detail using conversation analysis. The findings reveal the complexity of telephone-mediated medical receptionist work which involves multiple engagements involving the caller and the on-line booking systems. The work has clinical components and evidence was found of receptionists’ orientations to the potential urgency of callers’ problems and how a triaging process was initiated. Overall, this study shows medical receptionists do skillful communicative work granting patient requests or progressing relevant courses of action in a clinically responsible way, thus delivering a valuable and unrecognized aspect of health care delivery.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.