Wednesday, August 26, 2009

I'm a Grown-Up...

so I wish my kids' dentist office would start treating me like one.

I love so much about my kids' dentist.  The office is fabulous with video games and toys.  The dentist and her staff are all kind, efficient, and great with kids!  They take great care of our family. They send an email reminder, and give us a reminder call for every appointment, starting about 5 days before the appointment.  I usually have more than one kid scheduled for the same morning, so I get about three emails and three calls.  That can be a little irritating, but I appreciate a reminder.  Here is the part that drives me crazy however; when I miss their reminder call (which I almost always do) the message they leave asks me to call them back as a courtesy call to reserve my appointment time.  Huh?  I thought I reserved that appointment time when I, you know, MADE THE APPOINTMENT.  I feel so irritated with them for demanding that I call them back to tell them that yes, indeed, I am an adult that wrote the appointment on my calendar and I do intend to keep my appointment after all since that is what is customarily done with appointments.  I know it would take all of 20 seconds, but I never want to stop what I am doing to pick up the phone, find the number,  and tell the receptionist that I plan on keeping my appointment.  I just think it's stupid.  Send me a reminder if you want, that's nice.  But don't place this embarrassingly juvenile request on me that I call the office to let them know I plan to be there for something I obviously plan to be there for.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah...ALL our doctors/dentists do that and it irritates me too. I can only guess that they have a particular problem with people keeping their appointments if they don't hear from them in person?

Heather said...

Rachel hit it on the nail! You would be shocked at the number of people who forget about appointments that are scheduled more than a week or two in advance. We have one lady who spends all day calling to confirm appts and still have lots of no-shows. But I agree (and I think our receptionist does as well) that those calls can be quite annoying!

Amanda said...

My dentist just started doing that and it drives me crazy. I don't mind the call so much, but the fact that they want me to call them back is super annoying.

Brandy said...

We get the phone calls and post cards in the mail but the demand to call them back to confirm has not reached our little community--thank goodness! Hope it never does, that would drive me crazy too! So, I'm curious, what happens when you don't call them back, do they still hold the appt. time for you?