Over the weekend, I decided to switch to Google Voice. I put messages on all my phones (my cell, my practice office and my office at Hopkins) directing people to call me on my Google Voice number and have started the process of letting everyone like my bank and others know that my number has changed. Phone calls take a lot of time in my practice, and I’m trying to get more efficient. Going to Google Voice is part of that.
Why did I do this? Several reasons. One is that I have a lot more control over who rings my phone and who gets sent straight to voicemail. Another is that I can have different messages for certain groups (like patients) than for others. Finally, Google is my voicemail, and has a lot of features I didn’t have before like transcripts (admittedly imperfect) of my voicemails emailed to me and the ability to listen to messages out of order, labeled by who is calling.
This doesn’t have much to do with telepsychiatry, but I have noticed that I am really beginning to see conventional voicemail as pretty archaic . For routine stuff, my Google voice greeting suggests email rather than voicemail for routine matters. To me, this is becoming basic etiquette in the 21st century–why waste anyone’s time (including mine) on routine matters that are much better suited to email than voicemail? Voice communications are synchronous and best suited for more urgent or more private communications; email communications are asynchronous are much better suited for the routine “I need to reschedule my appointment” type of communication because both the other person and I can communicate without having to try to both be available at the same time.
I’m really starting to favor video calls even for routine voice communication. My experience with Skype has really opened my eyes (figuratively) to how much more information I get through a Skype video call. I had a patient do a video call on Skype last week just to talk for a five minute checkup after a change in meds the week before. I realized a really simple fact. You can’t see a smile on the telephone, but you can on a video call. Big difference. Better medicine. Why not use Skype as the default?
There’s some extra hassle with having to make a Skype call–the patient and I both need to be near a webcam, but I’m starting to consider having a regular “Skype call in” time some days where I’ll try to be able to answer Skype calls so that people can get to me a little easier…
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