Doctor Heal Thyself

I arrived at the doctors office at 8:45, for my appointment at 9:00. It's 9:45 and I haven't been called in yet. I have however had a heck of a time with the necessary forms.

The first thing they asked me to do was to fill out 7 medical forms. Two of them were three pages long, three of them have stuff on the front and back.  I informed them that I filled them out online, like they had requested me to do before I came in this morning. "You know." I said,  "On the website you sent me to while I was on the phone. You said it would make things go a lot smoother once I got here. Do you have a chair? I think I broke my ankle and my knee is all scraped up!"

Here We Go! 'We don't have any chairs and those forms don't come here.' She said. 'They go to billing.'
'So why did you have me fill them out before I came in?' I asked.
'Because we need them.' She replied.
'But you don't have them.' I said.
'But billing does.' Sez she.
'Can't you get them from billing?' I asked.
'Its against the law!' she said.
'Huh? These are the same exact questions as the ones on line. Why would that be against the law?" I asked.
'I know' crazy isn't it?' She laughed. 'You could always get them from billing yourself!'
'Where's that?' I asked.
She pointed to the girl to her left, in the chair less than two feet away.

That's A Different Department

'May I have my forms?' I asked. She just pointed towards the line in front of her. I sighed as I stepped into the four person deep line. I was surprised that it only took about 10 minutes to make it the front. It took much less time to find out why it was moving so fast.
"May I have the forms I filled out on line?" I inquired.
"What's your name?" she replied.
"Stan Bush."
"We don't have your forms. When did you submit them?" she asked.
"30 minutes ago at your offices request over the phone, right before I came up here."
'Oh. Those wont get here until they are printed by the scheduling clerk. "
"Well who's the scheduling clerk?" I asked.
She pointed back to the girl two feet away. The very girl that I had started with. I mustered a smile and tried to think of something to take away the throbbing sensation I was experiencing in my ankle.  And I used my phone to take notes of what was going on, and to leave three reviews of this business while I was waiting.

Back In The Day

I'm not going to get into the rest of the story. There's no need really.  The point has already been made. There are probably processes in your business that operate exactly the same.  You have employees who are using technology in ways that don't do anything but frustrate your customers. There are customers who are using technology to tell everyone they can about your operations.  All I'm suggesting is that you find out where that's happening, and fix it. And I'm not suggesting that you learn some new tool to do that.  You can hire someone to do that for you.