Coats Melvin W MD

The doctors here are not the problem. In fact, Dr. Coats is a first-​rate physician. The deal breaker? This CareMore medical office has to have one of the most customer-​unfriendly voicemail systems I have ever had the displeasure to encounter.
Making an appointment is nearly impossible here because the answering system is either on the fritz — and we’re talking years, not days — or SOMEONE in the front office mutes the ringer on the phone that routes to the scheduling desk.
Calling into this office consists of having an automated system announce the names of the doctors, with the prompt to press «1» to reach the doctors in question. If you try to bypass the automated spiel by pressing «1» just as soon as the system picks up your call, it will not recognize the entry. If that’s not annoying enough, the next step after pressing «1» is to HOPE that someone actually answers. I kid you not: The phone can and will ring more or less indefinitely until one of two things happen: Either your call will be dumped back into the automated answering system where you will again be prompted to press «1» for the doctor’s staff — this happens within ~20 rings that are not picked up by staff — OR you will literally have your call ring off the hook until an automated message from your telephone service provider informs you that the party you are trying to reach is not available. In short, calling this office feels a lot like trying to call someone who is trying to convince you they aren’t open for business. And to top it all off? There is no option in the voicemail menu to leave a message in the hope your call can be returned later.
Talk about customer UNfriendly!
Getting through to the appointment desk takes the patience of a saint. In fact, it’s possible to call in multiple times with the same no-​answer outcome. My spouse has long told me that getting an appointment with the doctor here is tough, but I had always taken that to mean that the doctor has limited hours or is booked solid. In hindsight, setting an appointment requires something even more basic: somebody to actually pick up the phone.
If the phone system were the only problem, it might be tolerable for all but the most urgent of circumstances. Unfortunately, in leaving messages for the doctor periodically over the years, my spouse has never had a single call returned by the doctor. This, too, could very well be a case of staff dropping the ball on their most basic of duties.
But here’s where it gets downright outrageous: Today I encountered someone at this office who believes the HIPAA law means that speaking to a spouse about faxing vs. mailing out a patient’s lab work constitutes a violation of patient privacy. In setting my spouse’s appointment for a physical a week ago, no objections were voiced by staff. But in attempting to get the lab work faxed directly to the medical laboratory in advance of spouse’s appointment after it failed to show up on time in the mail, I got THE runaround. Upon attempting to clarify that I was NOT seeking medical information — that is to violate my spouse’s «patient privacy» — I was told repeatedly by a young woman there that she could not speak to me. When I restated that I was only calling to leave the lab’s fax number so my spouse’s blood could be taken and the results made available to Dr. Coats in time for the appointment, I WAS HUNG UP ON.
Ironic. The only reason I was attempting to set my spouse’s medical appointment and request the requisite lab work was because my spouse’s efforts to get through to a «live person» at this office is often unsuccessful. My spouse does not have 10 – 20 minutes to spare while at work to cycle through CareMore Whittier’s impenetrable voicemail system, so I called in to take care of the matter of the missing lab work for my spouse. In so doing, I ran up against a staff member who would not permit me to leave a FAX NUMBER TO A MEDICAL LAB because she wasn’t going to take such a request from a spouse. Notably, this same office permitted me to request this very lab work by mail when I set the appointment the previous week. Only when the paperwork was a no-​show and I followed up with a fax number to the lab did I apparently violate HIPAA!
What working person has time for 1) a medical office that doesn’t take patient calls in a timely fashion, and 2) a medical office that hangs up on those who are simply trying to prepare a spouse or family member for an upcoming appointment by completing lab work in advance? Hanging up on a patient’s spouse — when that spouse is named in the patient’s medical chart as a designated contact! — is not only evidence of poor HIPAA training, but abjectly unprofessional conduct. At minimum, I would suggest CareMore management and/​or the doctors at this office anonymously call the appointment desk and/​or have their spouse or a friend do so as a test of the faulty voicemail system and/​or the employees who are abusing it. It just might be an eye opener.