secret shopper

I work in a little room where you talk to people about making appointments so they can see the doctors to feel better. Sometimes this in interesting most of the time it is boring.

As with any job there are protocols. A major one in this job is to get appointments within 72 hours for new patient and they have a secret shopper who call and pretend to be patients so they can verify that we are offering appointments within the 72 hours.

Sometime the supervisor will tell us that we were secret shopped and we passed. Sometimes we fail. Whenever we fail we get phone calls and meetings are called to make sure we all know the protocols for the 72 hours appointments. Those who were successful also give tips on how to identify the secret shopper’s blah blah blah.

We were secret shopped and we failed and I got a copy of the script and realized that I was the one who fail the call. My response, “sorry” what else can I say.

As a scheduler we are told the following information at various times.
1. Get the appointment on schedule within 72 hours if it is an emergent diagnosis
2. If it is an emergent diagnosis and we cannot get them in give the call to the nurses
3. If the nurse is adding to a Dr A then make sure the nurse has contact Dr A.
4. Do not put new patient in return patient slots.
5. Put new patient in return patient slots if the nurse says to and note added per nurse
6. Do not question the nurses when it come to Dr A schedules just do what they tell and note added per nurse
7. When you make same day appointments make sure to call the clinic and let them know that you added to today’s schedule.
8. Do not make same day appointments they are for the nurse to use for last minute emergencies
9. Dr B does not do sinus problems do not schedule them for him.
10. Dr C does not want Post op in 2 weeks they must be 4 weeks away.
11. If Dr B has slots that are available put sinus problems in these slots if there is nothing else available.
12. Do not answer medical questions refer them to the nurse.
13. Do this but not that
14. Do that but not this



Once again we fail the secret shopper and I am the one who did the call. My response is still the same, “sorry”. Okay I will sound more sincere, “ I am sorry”?

Whatever!