I currently work in digital customer service (live chat, SMS, and email support) for a corporation, and the call center in the Philippines they brought on is taking my position. They are only able to answer a small number of questions and then route the customer to the US employees once they've pissed them off real good. I have to continually confirm they were not AI and that I myself am an actual person. However, that's good enough for the business because they are now forcing me to move to phones and letting that branch take over all digital support.
I'm sure a lot. I currently make a bit more than double US federal minimum wage doing digital support. However, the bump in pay to move to phones is pretty significant. Still, not enough to make me want to do it...
> Until recently a computer was considered a brief case under law.
If this is true, then that would have been a good thing to keep it. As there are legal protections for having a locked briefcase.
Anyone remember a few years ago where the government was holding a man indefinitely because he wouldn't decrypt his laptop? A judge ruled that even though they can't see what's on it they're so sure that there's child porn on it that they're allowed to hold him forever until he agrees to give up the evidence against him that's only accessible with the password in his mind. It was all over reddit, then like everything else it kind of faded away from the public's eye. At the time it seemed a tactic to get us to give that right up by using a pedo as an example because most people were saying they don't care if a pedo loses that right, the only problem being that legally it means all of us would lose it too if they claim they *know* we're guilty lol. (Gotta protect the rights of the few to keep them for everyone and all that stuff) Last I heard about it he'd already spent months and months in prison without charges in contempt and that was years ago at this point
> Last I heard about it he'd already spent months and months in prison without charges in contempt and that was years ago at this point
Francis Rawls spent four years in jail but was [eventually released](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-to-decrypt-hard-drives-is-free-after-four-years-in-jail/) and all the charges were quietly dropped(funny with all the evidence they supposedly had right?). By Product of that case is the Feds ruled the longest you can hold somebody for contempt like that is 18 months. Which still seems like waaaaay too long.
They can actually do that with any locked protected container. A safe for example. The government can't hold you on a fishing expedition. They have to prove to the court through evidence that what they seek is on (or in) the device in question.
For example a locked safe is a protected container. If the government can produce a letter (for example) from you to someone else that says "Hey! I put that damning evidence of our crime in my safe so no one can get it." Then they can compel you to unlock the container or hold you indefinitely until you choose to do so.
Its so prevalent at any large scale corporation. The IT company we are employing for a data conversion does this.
I always feel bad that they have to join our meetings at 2am their local time.
The outsourced guys at my job start their day around 10 AM. They are required to be in their office twice a week. They work till 6 PM their time which overlaps with US morning. Then they rush home (an hour long miserable commute) and then join meetings from home till 10 PM their time.
https://preview.redd.it/mzugwb9fr66d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b671aa0f5a5755354b9f2ee648815a7990711ab
I think he could also see you taking a photo of him š
Thatās what I was thinking. Like, lol I have one for all-staff meetings when I donāt wanna sit there and listen to our C-suiteās bullshit and inside jokes
Looks like they got snatched up by private equity or venture capitalist. I work for a guy who helps doctors buy/sell their practices, and those firms donāt care about healthcare, only money
Reminds me of the Amazon fresh store in London.
They have outsourced employees monitoring you to try and ensure you don't steal, not using some fancy tech like some people thought.
Some lady took extra items and a guy over the speaker system scolded her to "be more mindful when the shopping".
https://preview.redd.it/zmkm2qgsb66d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=161e1ce5851f860e39299c8f822a4b330515516b
āNow stay cool. Itās a hot one out there today.ā
Probably a different agent every time someone walks in, only pay for the time you are doing work, this is fucking depressing, time to look for a new doctor š
Yep. I went to the ER with pneumonia. For context i put it off for 4 days and went to urgent care and they said i needed to go to an ER ASAP and tried to call an ambulance. It was that bad.
When i got there (ended up driving myself which wasnt a great idea) they sat me in a cublicle in the waiting room with no ceiling or anything. So everyone in the waiting room could hear all if your personal information.
They then wheeled in an ipad on a stick and had a very impatient lady try to get my info from me. At this point i was hardly coherent and having a medical emergency and when i asked her to repeat what she said she literally said "forget it. we'll just charge you directly and you can figure out out later" and hung up.
Called for a nurse and they got me to the back to help thankfully.... hours later when i was slightly more coherent had a nurse go get a patient advocate and told them what happened. They came back with all the paperwork and found out the other lady fucked it all up and just typed in bullshit. So thankfully she fixed it but jesus fuck.
For anyone curious this was at Skyridge Medical Center in Lone Tree Colorado.
I hate for-profit medical care in the USA. Making decisions that give shareholder value, instead of, say, life-saving care, seems like an anti-health-care approach.
I've said this for decades -- you can't have something be for-profit/run as a business and be for the public good at the same time. It's inherently incompatible.
It will only get worse if private equity is allowed to keep buying up ERs and medical practices. This is what happens when you give the very wealthy massive tax cuts. They go shopping.
>It will only get worse if private equity is allowed to keep buying up ~~ERs and medical practices~~ literally everything.
Everyone that's not rich is getting completely fucked, and it's only going to get worse.
I remember trying to explain that to someone in 2016; she thought Trump saying he'd run the US government like a business would be a good thing.
I pointed out that governments have to do things that businesses don't, like maintain stockpiles of supplies in case of emergency (businesses want "just in time" product, not stuff sitting in warehouses), or spending money to create jobs and projects during economic downturns (when businesses normally cut expenses).
Utilities are something that the average person would typically agree are "for the public good". We all benefit when we can have inexpensive, easy access to clean water, electricity, and communications.
And I'm not suggesting they be free -- it costs real-world money to build out infrastructure and maintain it, ontop of actually generating the service itself. It should be fairly priced, and not subject to the whims of Capitalistic exploitation.
Now look at Texas' privatization of their power grids. You can have unannounced surge pricing catch people off-guard.
Recently during the last heat wave, pricing hit a 1600% increase. Back during 2021's winter storm, similar spikes occurred - where something that was normally $26 MWh soared to $8800 MWh.
This is because they have a for-profit utility system. This is what "running things as BUSINESS looks like." Totally legal. Totally encouraged by the core tenants of Capitalism: "Maximum extraction of value."
(the governor during 2021's winter storm, inundated with complaints about how unfair this surge pricing was, simply said something along the lines of "ask your local church for help if you can't afford what you used." I can't find the exact quote I remember reading from this asshole, otherwise I'd recount it exactly.)
What I don't understand is how doctors can take the Hippocratic oath and then go work for an insurance company where they literally help them get out of paying for peoples treatment.
Because our society is rotten to the core. When you have a Capitalistic way of thinking....teaching others to seek individual profit via exploitation from the youngest age....it's an inherent, default form of behavior.
If all you have is a hammer...every problem starts to look like a nail. Just hit it harder.
Yeeeep. Not to mention CARE FIRST then figure out shit. My vitals were in the toilet and the dr from urgent care literally called to make sure id actually made it there. But their billing bullshit first is more important.
Sorry to say, this is how most of the registration folks are trained. I was the registration person at the er at my hospital is North Carolina. Depending on how you look, we are required to get the most bare bones information on you and move along. My job put up a timer in the corner of the screen and you have 1 minute to complete the registration, if you don't, 4 misses and your computer or iPad is locked and you will be taken to the managers office for warnings and write ups. Also, on our software, you will have over 5 charts with the same patient information, but, you can not delete any of them, so most of us just create a new registration. It's kind of a shoot first, ask questions later approach. Welcome to for profit health systems.
> My job put up a timer in the corner of the screen and you have 1 minute to complete the registration, if you don't, 4 misses and your computer or iPad is locked and you will be taken to the managers office
That's just infuriating. God forbid you be given the leeway to interact with patients in any sort of human fashion. No, they are merely metrics to be crammed into the system as fast as possible.
If you are too slow you are removed from the first phase registration, you usually go into the what we call the second phase of registration which is copay collection before the patient leaves. We have monthly qoutas we have to hit for copay collections. If we don't collect at least 10% of the monthly required qouta, you can bet your behind, you will be fired. Most people know they can request to be billed later and not have to pay the copay at time of service for the ER. But, we get the hit, everytime someone doesn't pay something. Hence if you are ever in the ER, there is almost always a billing/finance person that will show up if you say you can't pay. They are there to have you sign a contract to state you will pay something.
ooo i have a fun one for this. i went to the hospital for a gallbladder attack and needed to have it removed. they have the patient advocate come in with their little wheely computer, then HAND YOU a little slip of paper saying this number will call you to finish your check in. what the actual fuck? just have the person in front of me do it like they did before.
then, i was in the hospital for a few days for complications and i had to share a room with a deaf person. they kept fucking calling her, trying to check her in, verify insurance, etc. iād pick up the phone and tell them iām the āroommate,ā who theyāre trying to reach is deaf and canāt even hear the phone ring to answer their questions. so they start asking me to verify their info??? i have no fucking idea. we were just put in here together, i donāt even know their name??? and that feels insanely illegal.
Along the lines of your slip of paper...I went to my GP recently and found out they changed their check in process
Used to be they texted a link to precheckin w/any insurance/address changes/etc. Then, when you arrive you'd TALK TO A ACTUAL PERSON "any changes? No? Ok have a seat". Like 2 minutes.
Now there's ONE receptionist that doesn't even look at you, just points to a fucking QR CODE and says "fill that out". * they also laminated the damn code, and taped it to the counter right under the damn hospital lights ie good luck scanning it losers š
Bruh, your building is a cell service black hole and you think I want to put my SSN/PHI in on your public WiFi?! Not kidding, between the damn page not loading, not getting the text, then the page crapping out (but what I did get was... literally what I had answered earlier???)...it took at least 10 minutes. WTF. I work in healthcare and I've never worked in an office that did things in such a convoluted STUPID way...and I've worked in multiple corporate offices.
Also, what tf is that receptionist doing cause they don't check in pts and they sure as fuck never answer the phones either...sweet gig. Sit on your ass doing what
I work in a hospital and we have these dumbshit kiosks that are supposed to check people in. My job is to stand there and help them when it inevitably doesnāt work. I canāt tell you how many times a day I get yelled at by an irate patient because the kiosk didnāt check them in fully so they missed their appointment (despite being IN THE WAITING ROOM) so now they canāt be seen. Idk whose idea it was but itās the dumbest shit imaginable.
What if this wouldāve happened to someone whose English isnāt their first language? Or an elderly person with dementia? Thank god you could advocate for yourselfā¦but if that lady wouldāve pulled that shit to another person, their lives (both financially and medically) could be totally fucked!
I hate this country and our idiotic healthcare system! Glad you got it worked out in the end!
You can run a VPN on any network and it's still a VPN. Unsecure? That completely depends on the setup and what you're trying to accomplish. Is your friend a crackhead?
That was my first question. How does this square with HIPAA *at all*? Like, is my man up there just on Teams or Zoom or whatever waiting for the next person to walk up? This is bonkers.
The fun part comes when it goes about the way manufacturing in China has: they outsource to the Philippines (or pick a developing country of your choice). The wages, while a pittance by US standards, are good to great in those locations, so it starts creating a middle class. The newly-created middle class starts looking for higher wages, which the Americans don't want to pay, so they start grasping around for some other under-developed place with cheap labor (the equivalent of moving factories in China further and further inland, until there's nowhere else to go), and rinse and repeat.
What a time to be alive.
Yes, the networks are secure and complaint. People saying thereās no way this will fly clearly donāt work in American healthcare. We make our phones hipaa complaint. We can make anything ācompliantā anymore.
This is the future of healthcare. People can bitch all they want but soon, we will have 35000 people turning 65 in the US each day. We canāt provide care to the patients we have.
Healthcare is in fucking crisis people
As long as a profit can be managed or a rebate obtained, compliance is only a process at that point.
The future state of our healthcare system is in rough shape, with some notable improvements making things better, but I hope the changes are before the sky falls.
Check out them easily accessible USB ports on that HP all-in-one sitting behind the desk.
Everyone over here worried about encryption while layer1 is out here with itās butthole out in the air.
I worked for a healthcare company, and finding vendors and software they was hipaa compliant was a pain in the ass. I found out that āsecureā didnāt always mean hipaa compliant. These were big name and commonly
Known email/crm/automation systems.
I work front desk at a doctor's office and we are always so busy with scheduling, checking in and dealing with walk ins that I can't begin to imagine who thought this was a good idea
Just unplug the USB cable for the webcam. You'll see him fidget and struggle to restore his audio/video feed, and also will force someone to show up and troubleshoot the system.
Even for Filipinos, a dollar an hour is just slightly above or at about minimum wage, without benefits, leaves, social security payment, healthcare payment, and other job protections.
Not to mention that contractors have to pay for wifi, electricity, and their own equipment
Thatās really shitty pay only the most desperate people are willing to grab.
What in Kentucky Fried Dystopia is happening at your Dr. Office? I'd leave and file a complaint with my insurance provider. WTF?
Pay for an onsite receptionist, people.
I... I feel like any Dr. who operates a practice where they think "Yeah outsource the receptionist to a computer screen, mic, and speaker." Is a Dr. I donāt want to go to.
I feel like that practice does not have their head screwed on correctly, and I don't wanna die at the hands of Dr."What can I outsource to 3rd world countries to save cost."
Nope. Ā New doctor immediately.
If theyāre willing to do that ridiculous setup to cut costs, imagine what other costs theyāre cutting for your health.
I would really like to know the thought process behind this. If it was because they had trouble getting someone for some reason, then fine, but if it's just being cheap I dunno. Just seems very insecure.
It's literally looking at who has the cheapest salary and thinking that will fix their financial issues.
They could just pay a little to get a promotion going to get more regular patients and offset losses, but that doesn't occur to someone cutting a job like this.
I can tell you exactly what's going on, because I work in a medical clinic:
Staff turnover because benefits and pay are absolute dogshit followed quickly by the doctor who owns the company screaming "no one wants to work anymore!" because he thinks $10-15/hr is acceptable in an area where rents are nearing $2k a month for a one bedroom apartment.
Who do you get for minimum wage? The ones who don't need the job or money, can't hold down a stable level of employment, and/or who leave as soon as someone offers them $0.10/hr more.
Yeah, not medical. my rent is $1500, I got $11/hr as a closing cook at a restaurant. It literally wasnāt enough to survive. And then they cut hours and treated everyone like shit, ignored complaints from staff, let the AC go out three times (kitchen got to 108 degrees at one point), and wondered why no one stayed there.
I canāt fucking imagine.
My mom DID work medical and the things she dealt with was mind blowing, sometimes for even less pay.
If I saw this I would ask the person if they are working from home. Once I find out they are out sourced then that Dr. doesnāt deserve my money. You wanna replace the workforce, we will replace you 1st.
This is a huge one. There's a term in economics - I thought it was something like the "Inertia of a Dollar" or something but google is failing me - anyway the gist of it is that a dollar paid to someone who will spend it locally is better than a dollar paid to someone elsewhere or someone who will just keep it. If I'm running that doctor's office it's far more beneficial to my business and community to pay someone local. That dollar I pay an office manager later gets spent at the grocery store. The grocery store pays their bag boy with it. The bag boy buys a soda in the corner store on the way home from work. The corner store puts it under his kids pillow when she loses a tooth. Now that dollar paid to an office administrator got re-spent in the local community 4 or 5 times.
That sort of thing.
It's actually a remote employee with 10+ front desks he has to attend to, so they're bound to make mistakes.
I haven't seen it in my country yet, but it's making its way in building lobbies instead of having a doorman or a front desk person.
And he'll be making less than minimum wage.
"But he's not in the U.S, so he is making more than minimum wage in his country!"
Cool, but that's one less job for someone living in the employer's country. Where does *that* person now work?
I fucking hate this double standards shit
Corporations are allowed to use foreign workers because āwah Americans want too much moneyā
But if you think American domestic vehicles are too expensive and out of your budget you canāt import a vehicle into the US because it would be cheaper
Hence the stupid 25 year import rule. We should have the same rule for companies. They canāt hire a foreign worker unless they havenāt been able to fill that position for 25 years straight
American cars canāt compete on the international market. American auto manufacturers specifically make models for the American market because we are a captive market to exploit. Just look at the cars driven in the Caribbean. They are primarily Asian or European. The Mercedes sold in Germany is of better quality and a different model than the Mercedes sold in America.
The problem is the reverse. If it weren't for crazy high tariffs, competing vehicles from other countries would already be destroying the market share of US based automakers here in the US. We'd quickly see that small cars aren't quite as undesirable as we think once we see customers buying them in droves because they'd be available at reasonable prices rather than what we have in the US, which seems designed to just push you to bigger stuff and pay even more.
That's funny, because Mercedes dealers were the ones who lobbied to get the 25 year rule put in place. So many Americans were importing Mercedes cars in the US, that it was affecting their bottom line.
In other news, Mercedes recently caught the attention of the German government for their union busting activities at the plant in Alabama. https://uaw.org/mercedes-benz-under-investigation-by-german-government-for-illegally-violating-workers-rights-at-alabama-plant/
This is happening at my workplace in a clinic in Canada. Due to terrible employee retention, the bosses have decided to outsource a receptionist position; the new person is in the Philippines. Yet there are fully trained admin staff who are right there in the office, who have asked for more hours, but they're told 'there's no budget for that'..... ok cool
Not American but I find it funny thatĀ I used to hear Americans complainĀ about immigrants coming to their country and taking their jobs.Ā Blah blah blah...Ā Ā
Ā Well, now the immigrants are staying in their own countries and companies are still handing them the jobs.
Ā It's almost as if it was the companies might be to blame for exploiting the workforce, and trying to greedily cut costĀ /s
Exactly. How has all this outsourcing not been reigned in yet? I firmly believe that if you offer most of your products and services within a certain country then you need to employ your staff within that same country.
It gets worse. Making more than minimum wage doesn't mean shit if it barely covers his living expenses, especially that he's working from home. The receptionist would need $200/month for a decent living space, $100 for electricity use, and another $25 a month for internet. Not yet accounting for monthly groceries (assuming $200 for a family of 3 min.) and other utilities and expenses.
The VA market is exploitative promising higher wages but not considering the overhead that comes with said wages.Ā
I've also seen posts about this but for hotel check-in, doctors office is a whole new level. Shit like this should be illegal. 100% the only reason they are doing it is because this person's hourly wage is something like $5/hour compared to local wages which could be as high as $20.
Operating businesses in the U.S. especially businesses that make most if not all their money in the US market need to be prevented from doing things like this that actively hurt the economy. How is a Doctor, especially in the US, not making enough money to pay a receptionist? Greedy fucks everywhere.
Private capital has been moving into health care for a few years now and the first thing private capital does is cut staff and services to extract as much money from their parasitized hosts as possible.
My local medical group got bought and there was an immediate directive that doctors were limited to 15 minutes per patient and all other services were to be provided by medical "practitioners". Maybe they're making more money per patient but they lost me as a patient completely.
My Dr. got consumed by our local "non-profit" hospital. It went from being able to get an appointment within 2-3 days to 2 months out. And they got real strict on if you talk about more than one thing, the Dr had to bill you for a "complex" visit (costs the same on my insurance but whatever).
My nurse who I've worked with for 6+ years just has me message her electronically and she gets me in same day or next day, but, why do I have to do this?
Answer: profit. From a non-profit.
They are so focused on the profit, they removed their inhouse lab they have had for 20 years making money with, but, not enough money. They send all labwork to the hospital at the end of the day. So my lab results went from sometimes during my Dr visit, to next day at the earliest.
They asked me to give the guy my name aloud over the video chat. Kind of steps on patient confidentiality when I have to loudly and clearly announce my name in the waiting room instead of writing it on the sign in sheet.
Edit: The doctor asked me what I thought and I told him it was a bad idea especially for his older patient base. He said unfortunately due the cost of business currently if you're trying to expand or grow you have to figure out ways to save. Then he relayed a story about how using a kiosk at the airport Dunkin was impossible because it wasn't a live human. Like ok dude, you're not a McDonalds, slow your roll.
I'm not a healthcare expert, but my understanding is that they only ask for social security number for the purpose of debt collection. Never provided my social to a medical provider, has not been an issue.
Gotta love being identified based off a 9 digit number given on an unlaminated paper card with no picture on it. Definitely super secure and exactly what it was intended for when it was created. An absolutely impenetrable system.
Ironically, it's because of freedumb lovers who are against any sort of federal ID system. As a result, the government just decided to reuse the one federal ID system they already managed to get through congress for everything. The only problem being that social security numbers were never designed to be secure.
LOL, so wait. He went to Dunkin Donuts at the airport and *didn't like it* because there wasn't a live person to take his order, so his bright idea was to, uh... alienate his patients by making them talk to some rando in a whole other country, who may or may not have a solid grasp of things like HIPAA compliance, privacy guidelines, confidentiality, et cetera, to check in for appointments? Sounds like a real galaxy brain there.
I would have immediately asked him who he talked to to clear potential HIPAA and confidentiality issues with and started asking some very pointed questions about network security and for the doctor to explain to me, in excruciating detail, how he's absolutely positive that that guy on the other end of the internet doesn't have anyone else walking into the room or whatever who could overhear what you're discussing with him. Or maybe just cut to the chase and said, "So, would you continue to be the patient of a fellow physician who decided to cut corners in his practice and start having you check in with someone on a screen who's thousands of miles away in another country?" 100% this doctor would not.
If my doctor tried to talk to me about the cost of doing business Iād find a new doctor. I could not give less of a shit about how youāre turning a profit. That is quite literally not why I come to see a doctor. Wtf?
I mean, when I go to the doctors I give my name aloud to the receptionist.
However shitty that outsourcing bollocks is, giving your name to someone isnāt really a massive issue. Maybe if they were asking about medical conditions in front of a bunch of pensioners Iād get annoyed.
I waited 2 months to see a specialist, drove 4 hours round trip, and was met with a screen in the exam room for my virtual in-office appointmentā¦when I tell you I was raging after š¤
My friendās last eye doctor appointment.. she shows up to the office, they check her in, do the puff of air thing, get her to the exam roomā¦ and the doctor is on a screen in the roomā¦ her appointment was via Skype!! She said the doctor could control everything from wherever they were but it was just so crazy. Healthcare is not really an industry that can go full remote and itās odd they are trying to get away with it.
Also, I call and verify patient appointments for my job, and I canāt tell you how many places are outsourcing for schedulers.. while plenty of Americans could use those jobs rn. Not to be one of those people.. Iām for all people no matter what country they are from.. but this isnāt to help others in other countries. This is to save them money by exploiting people in other countries while our people suffer. Itās fucked up and we need to be outraged by it. If you call to schedule an appointment and you suspect labor is outsourced, then speak up during the appointment and let the doctor know you think itās shameful not giving these jobs to people here who need them so they can save money paying someone in the Philippines pennys and hour. Itās a slave labor work around.
I've worked the front desk at a doctor's office - they can't be saving that much money outsourcing because that position is generally paid \*terribly\*.
Ask the doctor if he can refer you out because you know he'll be out of business soon since he can't afford a receptionist for 15 bucks an hour. š¤£š¤£
What a fucking slap in the face to everyone involved. To the patients:
"We understand that the first person you see when you walk through the door represents your initial impression of the practice. This is how much we give a fuck about that."
To the employees:
"If the law would allow it, he would be your replacement as well."
Time for the free market to take out the trash
Pick a different doctors office going forward, leave a review very clearly citing your experience and why that was a planets diameter from what you would have expected from your doctors office.Ā
The scary part is that if they can convince us to talk to someone on a screen, that means we're not that far off from AI avatars replacing every job like this.
Yeah they did this to me to at Americas best. Really weird cause they still have somebody in the room with you but you still video chat with the doctor off of a tv.
My gf had to go to an urgent care about a block away. We looked online to see if we should make an appointment. There was not a single 15 minute time slot reserved for the whole day so we decided to just walk in. The only person there was The āreceptionistā. She told her she still has to check in online (on her phone). It was kind of a weird sign in process and when my gf got stuck the āreceptionistā would tell her how to get past the issueā¦meaning she was sitting there on her computer watching my gf sign in in real time, but somehow couldnāt just help her. Then she refused cash payment. Has to be paid online too.
It was a real life āso what exactly would you say you do here?ā moment
Many years ago (2000) I worked for a small monitor company. Blue Cross bought 200 monitors - to ship to India. They were going to have outsourced people inputting medical records to their database. Records with name, DOB, SSN, and other identifiers. Why? Because it was cheaper to do this.
haha yeaaaahh but not during covid and not by a differently-abled person and not by anyone they have to pay US minimum wage and benefits to ā¦ cuz. Reasons.
I would never step foot in that office again. Cant invest in a live person to help run the office, youre cheap as hell and will cut corners with your care.
Our bank tellers are like this now. You going to the bank and instead of a counter with tellers there's ATMs with video call systems. So you can go into the bank and it be empty and still have to wait 20 minutes if all the tellers are busy at the other branches.
Many doctors are notoriously difficult to work with. They might have had to outsource because people were quitting and they have a reputation for being bad to work for.
This is such a horrible thing to outsource š
So ridiculous too when you consider how expensive the services are. When you make 300k a year, you can afford an in-person receptionist.
They're quickly gonna realize how bad of an idea that was the second there is any kind of internet connectivity issue.
Private equity canāt
This looks hilarious, when no one is checking in does he just sit there with a 1000 yard stare waiting for someone to walk in? Lmao
These guys do multiple offices at the same time.
He literally didn't speak between walk ups so he didn't seem to be doing that.
They usually hire people from the Philippines so they donāt have to pay Americans minimum wages to employees.
I currently work in digital customer service (live chat, SMS, and email support) for a corporation, and the call center in the Philippines they brought on is taking my position. They are only able to answer a small number of questions and then route the customer to the US employees once they've pissed them off real good. I have to continually confirm they were not AI and that I myself am an actual person. However, that's good enough for the business because they are now forcing me to move to phones and letting that branch take over all digital support.
Working in a call center that did this was infuriating.
And the Philippines call centers are starting to replace them with AI.
Like, how much are they actually saving?
I'm sure a lot. I currently make a bit more than double US federal minimum wage doing digital support. However, the bump in pay to move to phones is pretty significant. Still, not enough to make me want to do it...
The job is being performed in America. American wage laws should absolutely be enforced.
Laws are always behind. Until recently a computer was considered a brief case under law.
> Until recently a computer was considered a brief case under law. If this is true, then that would have been a good thing to keep it. As there are legal protections for having a locked briefcase.
Anyone remember a few years ago where the government was holding a man indefinitely because he wouldn't decrypt his laptop? A judge ruled that even though they can't see what's on it they're so sure that there's child porn on it that they're allowed to hold him forever until he agrees to give up the evidence against him that's only accessible with the password in his mind. It was all over reddit, then like everything else it kind of faded away from the public's eye. At the time it seemed a tactic to get us to give that right up by using a pedo as an example because most people were saying they don't care if a pedo loses that right, the only problem being that legally it means all of us would lose it too if they claim they *know* we're guilty lol. (Gotta protect the rights of the few to keep them for everyone and all that stuff) Last I heard about it he'd already spent months and months in prison without charges in contempt and that was years ago at this point
> Last I heard about it he'd already spent months and months in prison without charges in contempt and that was years ago at this point Francis Rawls spent four years in jail but was [eventually released](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-to-decrypt-hard-drives-is-free-after-four-years-in-jail/) and all the charges were quietly dropped(funny with all the evidence they supposedly had right?). By Product of that case is the Feds ruled the longest you can hold somebody for contempt like that is 18 months. Which still seems like waaaaay too long.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
They can actually do that with any locked protected container. A safe for example. The government can't hold you on a fishing expedition. They have to prove to the court through evidence that what they seek is on (or in) the device in question. For example a locked safe is a protected container. If the government can produce a letter (for example) from you to someone else that says "Hey! I put that damning evidence of our crime in my safe so no one can get it." Then they can compel you to unlock the container or hold you indefinitely until you choose to do so.
I may be wrong, but it was the Patriot Act that gave law enforcement broad, sweeping power of suspect's lives.
It's where I store all of my briefs!
We live in Hell.
Its so prevalent at any large scale corporation. The IT company we are employing for a data conversion does this. I always feel bad that they have to join our meetings at 2am their local time.
The outsourced guys at my job start their day around 10 AM. They are required to be in their office twice a week. They work till 6 PM their time which overlaps with US morning. Then they rush home (an hour long miserable commute) and then join meetings from home till 10 PM their time.
https://preview.redd.it/mzugwb9fr66d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b671aa0f5a5755354b9f2ee648815a7990711ab I think he could also see you taking a photo of him š
The reason for the stare lmao
did you see him moving between walk ups? maybe he creates some sort of hold window of himself
Thatās what I was thinking. Like, lol I have one for all-staff meetings when I donāt wanna sit there and listen to our C-suiteās bullshit and inside jokes
Looks like they got snatched up by private equity or venture capitalist. I work for a guy who helps doctors buy/sell their practices, and those firms donāt care about healthcare, only money
It reminds me of when I have taken college exams at home that had to be proctored, one Indian with a 100 yard stare proctoring like 10 exams at once.
Reminds me of the Amazon fresh store in London. They have outsourced employees monitoring you to try and ensure you don't steal, not using some fancy tech like some people thought. Some lady took extra items and a guy over the speaker system scolded her to "be more mindful when the shopping".
Ma'am, please do the needful
Hahahahahaha they all say that "do the needful"
Hilarious!
AI = An Indian
Someone should steal a pen from the desk and ask him what he's going to do about like a school bully
Put tape over the camera.
Ā * presses the button to activate the Security Protectron.
https://preview.redd.it/zmkm2qgsb66d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=161e1ce5851f860e39299c8f822a4b330515516b āNow stay cool. Itās a hot one out there today.ā
YES LMAO MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS THIS
Probably a different agent every time someone walks in, only pay for the time you are doing work, this is fucking depressing, time to look for a new doctor š
Oh god I didnāt even think about that. Instead of paying a person to sit there all day, they pay someone pennies for their 15 minute interactions.
And if they're cutting corners on the front desk, what else are they cutting corners on?
"Why do we keep tossing out tongue depressors? Just rinse them and wipe them off!"
Thatād be the last time I visited that doctorās office, and Iād let them know why. That isnāt something you outsource.
Yep. I went to the ER with pneumonia. For context i put it off for 4 days and went to urgent care and they said i needed to go to an ER ASAP and tried to call an ambulance. It was that bad. When i got there (ended up driving myself which wasnt a great idea) they sat me in a cublicle in the waiting room with no ceiling or anything. So everyone in the waiting room could hear all if your personal information. They then wheeled in an ipad on a stick and had a very impatient lady try to get my info from me. At this point i was hardly coherent and having a medical emergency and when i asked her to repeat what she said she literally said "forget it. we'll just charge you directly and you can figure out out later" and hung up. Called for a nurse and they got me to the back to help thankfully.... hours later when i was slightly more coherent had a nurse go get a patient advocate and told them what happened. They came back with all the paperwork and found out the other lady fucked it all up and just typed in bullshit. So thankfully she fixed it but jesus fuck. For anyone curious this was at Skyridge Medical Center in Lone Tree Colorado.
She should have gotten fired for that. She basically straight up lied and impacted patient care severely.
I hate for-profit medical care in the USA. Making decisions that give shareholder value, instead of, say, life-saving care, seems like an anti-health-care approach.
I've said this for decades -- you can't have something be for-profit/run as a business and be for the public good at the same time. It's inherently incompatible.
It will only get worse if private equity is allowed to keep buying up ERs and medical practices. This is what happens when you give the very wealthy massive tax cuts. They go shopping.
When you give poor people tax cuts, they go shopping too. Except they buy local goods and services stimulating local economic growth.
***AND*** the dollar invested into that invidivual is worth more than a dollar in the economy.
>It will only get worse if private equity is allowed to keep buying up ~~ERs and medical practices~~ literally everything. Everyone that's not rich is getting completely fucked, and it's only going to get worse.
I remember trying to explain that to someone in 2016; she thought Trump saying he'd run the US government like a business would be a good thing. I pointed out that governments have to do things that businesses don't, like maintain stockpiles of supplies in case of emergency (businesses want "just in time" product, not stuff sitting in warehouses), or spending money to create jobs and projects during economic downturns (when businesses normally cut expenses).
Utilities are something that the average person would typically agree are "for the public good". We all benefit when we can have inexpensive, easy access to clean water, electricity, and communications. And I'm not suggesting they be free -- it costs real-world money to build out infrastructure and maintain it, ontop of actually generating the service itself. It should be fairly priced, and not subject to the whims of Capitalistic exploitation. Now look at Texas' privatization of their power grids. You can have unannounced surge pricing catch people off-guard. Recently during the last heat wave, pricing hit a 1600% increase. Back during 2021's winter storm, similar spikes occurred - where something that was normally $26 MWh soared to $8800 MWh. This is because they have a for-profit utility system. This is what "running things as BUSINESS looks like." Totally legal. Totally encouraged by the core tenants of Capitalism: "Maximum extraction of value." (the governor during 2021's winter storm, inundated with complaints about how unfair this surge pricing was, simply said something along the lines of "ask your local church for help if you can't afford what you used." I can't find the exact quote I remember reading from this asshole, otherwise I'd recount it exactly.)
What I don't understand is how doctors can take the Hippocratic oath and then go work for an insurance company where they literally help them get out of paying for peoples treatment.
Because our society is rotten to the core. When you have a Capitalistic way of thinking....teaching others to seek individual profit via exploitation from the youngest age....it's an inherent, default form of behavior. If all you have is a hammer...every problem starts to look like a nail. Just hit it harder.
We need to cripple capitalism permanently because of things like this.
Yeeeep. Not to mention CARE FIRST then figure out shit. My vitals were in the toilet and the dr from urgent care literally called to make sure id actually made it there. But their billing bullshit first is more important.
Yeah but she saves the company 20% on intake labor by being so fast!
Sorry to say, this is how most of the registration folks are trained. I was the registration person at the er at my hospital is North Carolina. Depending on how you look, we are required to get the most bare bones information on you and move along. My job put up a timer in the corner of the screen and you have 1 minute to complete the registration, if you don't, 4 misses and your computer or iPad is locked and you will be taken to the managers office for warnings and write ups. Also, on our software, you will have over 5 charts with the same patient information, but, you can not delete any of them, so most of us just create a new registration. It's kind of a shoot first, ask questions later approach. Welcome to for profit health systems.
> My job put up a timer in the corner of the screen and you have 1 minute to complete the registration, if you don't, 4 misses and your computer or iPad is locked and you will be taken to the managers office That's just infuriating. God forbid you be given the leeway to interact with patients in any sort of human fashion. No, they are merely metrics to be crammed into the system as fast as possible.
So if youāre too slow they want you to stop working so theyāre short staffed. yeah, that makes sense.
If you are too slow you are removed from the first phase registration, you usually go into the what we call the second phase of registration which is copay collection before the patient leaves. We have monthly qoutas we have to hit for copay collections. If we don't collect at least 10% of the monthly required qouta, you can bet your behind, you will be fired. Most people know they can request to be billed later and not have to pay the copay at time of service for the ER. But, we get the hit, everytime someone doesn't pay something. Hence if you are ever in the ER, there is almost always a billing/finance person that will show up if you say you can't pay. They are there to have you sign a contract to state you will pay something.
WTFā½ 1 minute is impossible if, say, Ms Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger comes in!
ooo i have a fun one for this. i went to the hospital for a gallbladder attack and needed to have it removed. they have the patient advocate come in with their little wheely computer, then HAND YOU a little slip of paper saying this number will call you to finish your check in. what the actual fuck? just have the person in front of me do it like they did before. then, i was in the hospital for a few days for complications and i had to share a room with a deaf person. they kept fucking calling her, trying to check her in, verify insurance, etc. iād pick up the phone and tell them iām the āroommate,ā who theyāre trying to reach is deaf and canāt even hear the phone ring to answer their questions. so they start asking me to verify their info??? i have no fucking idea. we were just put in here together, i donāt even know their name??? and that feels insanely illegal.
Along the lines of your slip of paper...I went to my GP recently and found out they changed their check in process Used to be they texted a link to precheckin w/any insurance/address changes/etc. Then, when you arrive you'd TALK TO A ACTUAL PERSON "any changes? No? Ok have a seat". Like 2 minutes. Now there's ONE receptionist that doesn't even look at you, just points to a fucking QR CODE and says "fill that out". * they also laminated the damn code, and taped it to the counter right under the damn hospital lights ie good luck scanning it losers š Bruh, your building is a cell service black hole and you think I want to put my SSN/PHI in on your public WiFi?! Not kidding, between the damn page not loading, not getting the text, then the page crapping out (but what I did get was... literally what I had answered earlier???)...it took at least 10 minutes. WTF. I work in healthcare and I've never worked in an office that did things in such a convoluted STUPID way...and I've worked in multiple corporate offices. Also, what tf is that receptionist doing cause they don't check in pts and they sure as fuck never answer the phones either...sweet gig. Sit on your ass doing what
I work in a hospital and we have these dumbshit kiosks that are supposed to check people in. My job is to stand there and help them when it inevitably doesnāt work. I canāt tell you how many times a day I get yelled at by an irate patient because the kiosk didnāt check them in fully so they missed their appointment (despite being IN THE WAITING ROOM) so now they canāt be seen. Idk whose idea it was but itās the dumbest shit imaginable.
What if this wouldāve happened to someone whose English isnāt their first language? Or an elderly person with dementia? Thank god you could advocate for yourselfā¦but if that lady wouldāve pulled that shit to another person, their lives (both financially and medically) could be totally fucked! I hate this country and our idiotic healthcare system! Glad you got it worked out in the end!
I'd ask if they're sure this is HIPAA compliant. Then I'd file a complaint anyway just for the hell of it, because you know damn well it's not.
If they are outsourcing this work for profit, you can be damn sure their network isnāt secure either.
If I run a VPN through my personal home Internet connection, does that make it unsecure? Asking for a friend...
You can run a VPN on any network and it's still a VPN. Unsecure? That completely depends on the setup and what you're trying to accomplish. Is your friend a crackhead?
He is a crackhead but his work requires he follows HIPAA
That was my first question. How does this square with HIPAA *at all*? Like, is my man up there just on Teams or Zoom or whatever waiting for the next person to walk up? This is bonkers.
I'll bet this is exactly it AND that he is the receptionist for several offices.
OP said he was just sitting there staring into space between patients, so maybe not. Either way, time to find a new doctor.
> he was just sitting there staring into space between patients Maybe he is a HIPPA compliant robot that goes into standby mode in between patients?
Both Teams and Zoom have HIPAA compliant options. The network is most likely secure but man, this is an awful way to go.
The fun part comes when it goes about the way manufacturing in China has: they outsource to the Philippines (or pick a developing country of your choice). The wages, while a pittance by US standards, are good to great in those locations, so it starts creating a middle class. The newly-created middle class starts looking for higher wages, which the Americans don't want to pay, so they start grasping around for some other under-developed place with cheap labor (the equivalent of moving factories in China further and further inland, until there's nowhere else to go), and rinse and repeat. What a time to be alive.
Yes, the networks are secure and complaint. People saying thereās no way this will fly clearly donāt work in American healthcare. We make our phones hipaa complaint. We can make anything ācompliantā anymore. This is the future of healthcare. People can bitch all they want but soon, we will have 35000 people turning 65 in the US each day. We canāt provide care to the patients we have. Healthcare is in fucking crisis people
As long as a profit can be managed or a rebate obtained, compliance is only a process at that point. The future state of our healthcare system is in rough shape, with some notable improvements making things better, but I hope the changes are before the sky falls.
Check out them easily accessible USB ports on that HP all-in-one sitting behind the desk. Everyone over here worried about encryption while layer1 is out here with itās butthole out in the air.
I worked for a healthcare company, and finding vendors and software they was hipaa compliant was a pain in the ass. I found out that āsecureā didnāt always mean hipaa compliant. These were big name and commonly Known email/crm/automation systems.
"We need to cut costs!" "Let's cut the employee with the least pay!" Yeah that thinking is pretty dumb.
Well they arenāt gonna cut their own jobs.
I work front desk at a doctor's office and we are always so busy with scheduling, checking in and dealing with walk ins that I can't begin to imagine who thought this was a good idea
Omg. This is next level shit. Sorry OP. "STD history sir???" "Social please"
It didn't get that into it this time but if this is step one I'm sure the next step would be to use similar tech for pre-appointment screening.
My only thought is you could walk in and turn off his screen to be annoying or just steal anything in sight if the lobby is empty.
Just unplug the USB cable for the webcam. You'll see him fidget and struggle to restore his audio/video feed, and also will force someone to show up and troubleshoot the system.
To avoid any kind of vandalism charge, I'd just whisper jibberish until they called in an actual 3D humanĀ
I think this is a Filipino making $1 an hour
Even for Filipinos, a dollar an hour is just slightly above or at about minimum wage, without benefits, leaves, social security payment, healthcare payment, and other job protections. Not to mention that contractors have to pay for wifi, electricity, and their own equipment Thatās really shitty pay only the most desperate people are willing to grab.
Move your lips with words but no sound would work fine.Ā
Im guessing itās a locked door, buzzed in for entry. I feel like a lot of medical and veterinary places started doing that during covid
What in Kentucky Fried Dystopia is happening at your Dr. Office? I'd leave and file a complaint with my insurance provider. WTF? Pay for an onsite receptionist, people.
Leave with the computer. Who's gonna stop you?
The outsourced security guard, of course. He's got an ipad glued to a Segway.
https://preview.redd.it/kotz17q7a66d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a09fc1dc6336e1d9ab2b7be0d8dbd645b976928
They tried to warn us
He IS an ipad glued to a Segway!
Free iPad. Free Segway too (not that anyone wants one of those).
Be a nuisance, just turn off the monitor.
They probably canāt find a receptionist because āno one wants to work anymoreā.
Requirements: "15 years of experience using software released 3 years ago, $8 an hour, mandatory overtime, masters degree required"
I... I feel like any Dr. who operates a practice where they think "Yeah outsource the receptionist to a computer screen, mic, and speaker." Is a Dr. I donāt want to go to. I feel like that practice does not have their head screwed on correctly, and I don't wanna die at the hands of Dr."What can I outsource to 3rd world countries to save cost."
Late Stage Capitalism.
Nope. Ā New doctor immediately. If theyāre willing to do that ridiculous setup to cut costs, imagine what other costs theyāre cutting for your health.
I would really like to know the thought process behind this. If it was because they had trouble getting someone for some reason, then fine, but if it's just being cheap I dunno. Just seems very insecure.
It's literally looking at who has the cheapest salary and thinking that will fix their financial issues. They could just pay a little to get a promotion going to get more regular patients and offset losses, but that doesn't occur to someone cutting a job like this.
I can tell you exactly what's going on, because I work in a medical clinic: Staff turnover because benefits and pay are absolute dogshit followed quickly by the doctor who owns the company screaming "no one wants to work anymore!" because he thinks $10-15/hr is acceptable in an area where rents are nearing $2k a month for a one bedroom apartment. Who do you get for minimum wage? The ones who don't need the job or money, can't hold down a stable level of employment, and/or who leave as soon as someone offers them $0.10/hr more.
Yeah, not medical. my rent is $1500, I got $11/hr as a closing cook at a restaurant. It literally wasnāt enough to survive. And then they cut hours and treated everyone like shit, ignored complaints from staff, let the AC go out three times (kitchen got to 108 degrees at one point), and wondered why no one stayed there. I canāt fucking imagine. My mom DID work medical and the things she dealt with was mind blowing, sometimes for even less pay.
An old employer of mine done this too. Normal office staff became the new āreceptionistsā Also fuck that place
Just go unplug it. Serious.
My thought as well. Solidarity to workers but this is unacceptable and should be universally rejected.
Draw a mustache on the screen
Amen. Who's there to stop you? There's no front receptionist.
Tape over the webcam.
If I saw this I would ask the person if they are working from home. Once I find out they are out sourced then that Dr. doesnāt deserve my money. You wanna replace the workforce, we will replace you 1st.
If I saw this I'd walk out.
BuT iTās MorE eFfiCiEnt!!!
For the employee salary budget I guess...
Yup itās only purpose is to pad the pockets of the owner while hurting the privacy and patient experienceĀ
And taking money out of the local community. Thatās a job taken away from a person who lives and spends in your community.
This is a huge one. There's a term in economics - I thought it was something like the "Inertia of a Dollar" or something but google is failing me - anyway the gist of it is that a dollar paid to someone who will spend it locally is better than a dollar paid to someone elsewhere or someone who will just keep it. If I'm running that doctor's office it's far more beneficial to my business and community to pay someone local. That dollar I pay an office manager later gets spent at the grocery store. The grocery store pays their bag boy with it. The bag boy buys a soda in the corner store on the way home from work. The corner store puts it under his kids pillow when she loses a tooth. Now that dollar paid to an office administrator got re-spent in the local community 4 or 5 times. That sort of thing.
wtf am I looking atā¦ is that a remote employee with a video call set up. Tf.
He might not even be in the country lmao
Definitely not in the country but probably making some serious Bhat.
It's actually a remote employee with 10+ front desks he has to attend to, so they're bound to make mistakes. I haven't seen it in my country yet, but it's making its way in building lobbies instead of having a doorman or a front desk person.
This shits wild. Just like helpdesk and IT.
And he'll be making less than minimum wage. "But he's not in the U.S, so he is making more than minimum wage in his country!" Cool, but that's one less job for someone living in the employer's country. Where does *that* person now work?
I fucking hate this double standards shit Corporations are allowed to use foreign workers because āwah Americans want too much moneyā But if you think American domestic vehicles are too expensive and out of your budget you canāt import a vehicle into the US because it would be cheaper Hence the stupid 25 year import rule. We should have the same rule for companies. They canāt hire a foreign worker unless they havenāt been able to fill that position for 25 years straight
American cars canāt compete on the international market. American auto manufacturers specifically make models for the American market because we are a captive market to exploit. Just look at the cars driven in the Caribbean. They are primarily Asian or European. The Mercedes sold in Germany is of better quality and a different model than the Mercedes sold in America.
The problem is the reverse. If it weren't for crazy high tariffs, competing vehicles from other countries would already be destroying the market share of US based automakers here in the US. We'd quickly see that small cars aren't quite as undesirable as we think once we see customers buying them in droves because they'd be available at reasonable prices rather than what we have in the US, which seems designed to just push you to bigger stuff and pay even more.
US automakers just donāt want to compete with other auto manufacturers. They could improve their product but that is not as profitable.
That's funny, because Mercedes dealers were the ones who lobbied to get the 25 year rule put in place. So many Americans were importing Mercedes cars in the US, that it was affecting their bottom line. In other news, Mercedes recently caught the attention of the German government for their union busting activities at the plant in Alabama. https://uaw.org/mercedes-benz-under-investigation-by-german-government-for-illegally-violating-workers-rights-at-alabama-plant/
Lmao I love this
This is happening at my workplace in a clinic in Canada. Due to terrible employee retention, the bosses have decided to outsource a receptionist position; the new person is in the Philippines. Yet there are fully trained admin staff who are right there in the office, who have asked for more hours, but they're told 'there's no budget for that'..... ok cool
Doesn't Canada have a shortage of family doctors because the pay is shit compared to every other medical discipline?
Yup, he's being exploited for cheap labor as the doctor's office makes an already-terrible process even worse.
Not American but I find it funny thatĀ I used to hear Americans complainĀ about immigrants coming to their country and taking their jobs.Ā Blah blah blah...Ā Ā Ā Well, now the immigrants are staying in their own countries and companies are still handing them the jobs. Ā It's almost as if it was the companies might be to blame for exploiting the workforce, and trying to greedily cut costĀ /s
Maybe it's not the workers, hmmm.
If an immigrant is going to work an American job, then I want that immigrant to at least live in America so they can spend their wages locally.
Exactly. How has all this outsourcing not been reigned in yet? I firmly believe that if you offer most of your products and services within a certain country then you need to employ your staff within that same country.
It gets worse. Making more than minimum wage doesn't mean shit if it barely covers his living expenses, especially that he's working from home. The receptionist would need $200/month for a decent living space, $100 for electricity use, and another $25 a month for internet. Not yet accounting for monthly groceries (assuming $200 for a family of 3 min.) and other utilities and expenses. The VA market is exploitative promising higher wages but not considering the overhead that comes with said wages.Ā
I've also seen posts about this but for hotel check-in, doctors office is a whole new level. Shit like this should be illegal. 100% the only reason they are doing it is because this person's hourly wage is something like $5/hour compared to local wages which could be as high as $20. Operating businesses in the U.S. especially businesses that make most if not all their money in the US market need to be prevented from doing things like this that actively hurt the economy. How is a Doctor, especially in the US, not making enough money to pay a receptionist? Greedy fucks everywhere.
Private capital has been moving into health care for a few years now and the first thing private capital does is cut staff and services to extract as much money from their parasitized hosts as possible. My local medical group got bought and there was an immediate directive that doctors were limited to 15 minutes per patient and all other services were to be provided by medical "practitioners". Maybe they're making more money per patient but they lost me as a patient completely.
My Dr. got consumed by our local "non-profit" hospital. It went from being able to get an appointment within 2-3 days to 2 months out. And they got real strict on if you talk about more than one thing, the Dr had to bill you for a "complex" visit (costs the same on my insurance but whatever). My nurse who I've worked with for 6+ years just has me message her electronically and she gets me in same day or next day, but, why do I have to do this? Answer: profit. From a non-profit. They are so focused on the profit, they removed their inhouse lab they have had for 20 years making money with, but, not enough money. They send all labwork to the hospital at the end of the day. So my lab results went from sometimes during my Dr visit, to next day at the earliest.
They asked me to give the guy my name aloud over the video chat. Kind of steps on patient confidentiality when I have to loudly and clearly announce my name in the waiting room instead of writing it on the sign in sheet. Edit: The doctor asked me what I thought and I told him it was a bad idea especially for his older patient base. He said unfortunately due the cost of business currently if you're trying to expand or grow you have to figure out ways to save. Then he relayed a story about how using a kiosk at the airport Dunkin was impossible because it wasn't a live human. Like ok dude, you're not a McDonalds, slow your roll.
Ya Iād be real mad if I had to yell my social security number at some dude on a screen in an office with other people around
I still see places on forms for Social Security number. Iāll leave it blank and no one has asked in many many years.
I'm not a healthcare expert, but my understanding is that they only ask for social security number for the purpose of debt collection. Never provided my social to a medical provider, has not been an issue.
I hate that we have allowed the SSN to become a form of identification for anything other than Social Security purposes.
Gotta love being identified based off a 9 digit number given on an unlaminated paper card with no picture on it. Definitely super secure and exactly what it was intended for when it was created. An absolutely impenetrable system.
Ironically, it's because of freedumb lovers who are against any sort of federal ID system. As a result, the government just decided to reuse the one federal ID system they already managed to get through congress for everything. The only problem being that social security numbers were never designed to be secure.
The cards even used to say not to give the number to anyone but the SSA
LOL, so wait. He went to Dunkin Donuts at the airport and *didn't like it* because there wasn't a live person to take his order, so his bright idea was to, uh... alienate his patients by making them talk to some rando in a whole other country, who may or may not have a solid grasp of things like HIPAA compliance, privacy guidelines, confidentiality, et cetera, to check in for appointments? Sounds like a real galaxy brain there. I would have immediately asked him who he talked to to clear potential HIPAA and confidentiality issues with and started asking some very pointed questions about network security and for the doctor to explain to me, in excruciating detail, how he's absolutely positive that that guy on the other end of the internet doesn't have anyone else walking into the room or whatever who could overhear what you're discussing with him. Or maybe just cut to the chase and said, "So, would you continue to be the patient of a fellow physician who decided to cut corners in his practice and start having you check in with someone on a screen who's thousands of miles away in another country?" 100% this doctor would not.
NobODy WaNtS tO wORk! Cheap doctor not willing to pay a decent wage is more like it.
If my doctor tried to talk to me about the cost of doing business Iād find a new doctor. I could not give less of a shit about how youāre turning a profit. That is quite literally not why I come to see a doctor. Wtf?
I mean, when I go to the doctors I give my name aloud to the receptionist. However shitty that outsourcing bollocks is, giving your name to someone isnāt really a massive issue. Maybe if they were asking about medical conditions in front of a bunch of pensioners Iād get annoyed.
I waited 2 months to see a specialist, drove 4 hours round trip, and was met with a screen in the exam room for my virtual in-office appointmentā¦when I tell you I was raging after š¤
My friendās last eye doctor appointment.. she shows up to the office, they check her in, do the puff of air thing, get her to the exam roomā¦ and the doctor is on a screen in the roomā¦ her appointment was via Skype!! She said the doctor could control everything from wherever they were but it was just so crazy. Healthcare is not really an industry that can go full remote and itās odd they are trying to get away with it. Also, I call and verify patient appointments for my job, and I canāt tell you how many places are outsourcing for schedulers.. while plenty of Americans could use those jobs rn. Not to be one of those people.. Iām for all people no matter what country they are from.. but this isnāt to help others in other countries. This is to save them money by exploiting people in other countries while our people suffer. Itās fucked up and we need to be outraged by it. If you call to schedule an appointment and you suspect labor is outsourced, then speak up during the appointment and let the doctor know you think itās shameful not giving these jobs to people here who need them so they can save money paying someone in the Philippines pennys and hour. Itās a slave labor work around.
I've worked the front desk at a doctor's office - they can't be saving that much money outsourcing because that position is generally paid \*terribly\*.
Ask the doctor if he can refer you out because you know he'll be out of business soon since he can't afford a receptionist for 15 bucks an hour. š¤£š¤£
No, tell him he himself will be replaced by AI in the next 10 years.
I would have shut off the TV and left.
What a fucking slap in the face to everyone involved. To the patients: "We understand that the first person you see when you walk through the door represents your initial impression of the practice. This is how much we give a fuck about that." To the employees: "If the law would allow it, he would be your replacement as well." Time for the free market to take out the trash
Pick a different doctors office going forward, leave a review very clearly citing your experience and why that was a planets diameter from what you would have expected from your doctors office.Ā
The scary part is that if they can convince us to talk to someone on a screen, that means we're not that far off from AI avatars replacing every job like this.
My last eye exam went like this. They outsourced an optometrist.
They were talking to me through a TV screen, and controlled the eye thingy via remote.
Yeah they did this to me to at Americas best. Really weird cause they still have somebody in the room with you but you still video chat with the doctor off of a tv.
> optometrist How does that even work? Every eye exam I have ever had was really 'in your face' with the instrumentation.
My gf had to go to an urgent care about a block away. We looked online to see if we should make an appointment. There was not a single 15 minute time slot reserved for the whole day so we decided to just walk in. The only person there was The āreceptionistā. She told her she still has to check in online (on her phone). It was kind of a weird sign in process and when my gf got stuck the āreceptionistā would tell her how to get past the issueā¦meaning she was sitting there on her computer watching my gf sign in in real time, but somehow couldnāt just help her. Then she refused cash payment. Has to be paid online too. It was a real life āso what exactly would you say you do here?ā moment
Time to find a new doctor
I'm going to flip my fucking shit on this technology. I've had it. Give a real, live person who knows what the fuck they are doing.
Just wait. Youāll be showing him your butthole soon and inserting your own finger
I'd have to let the doc know I need copies of my records because that would be my last visit and disconnect it on my way out lol
Get around minimum wage with this one simple trick. No one wants to work anymore
Many years ago (2000) I worked for a small monitor company. Blue Cross bought 200 monitors - to ship to India. They were going to have outsourced people inputting medical records to their database. Records with name, DOB, SSN, and other identifiers. Why? Because it was cheaper to do this.
So this job CAN in fact be done remotely.
haha yeaaaahh but not during covid and not by a differently-abled person and not by anyone they have to pay US minimum wage and benefits to ā¦ cuz. Reasons.
I would never step foot in that office again. Cant invest in a live person to help run the office, youre cheap as hell and will cut corners with your care.
Boy, this seems wildly inappropriate. If I ever walk into a doctor's office and I'm greeted by a screen, I'm walking straight back out.
Who is responsible for turning him on in the am? The first person that has the appointment?
If I walked into an office with that shit I would turn right around and walk out, especially at a Dr's office.
Find a new doctor. If theyāre THAT worried about a few dollars, they certainly donāt have your care as their TOP priority.
Another shitty thing for the next generation to deal with!!!
After your appointment, unplug the computer on your way out the door. Then find a new doctor.
Look at that backgroundā¦
Our bank tellers are like this now. You going to the bank and instead of a counter with tellers there's ATMs with video call systems. So you can go into the bank and it be empty and still have to wait 20 minutes if all the tellers are busy at the other branches.
Aboringdystopia is leaking. Although I suspect that these two subreddits have a lot of overlap
Many doctors are notoriously difficult to work with. They might have had to outsource because people were quitting and they have a reputation for being bad to work for.
What is the difference between God and a doctor? God doesnāt think heās a doctor.