CHAPTER VI

=RECEPTION OF OFFICE PATIENTS=

To the physician who prefers to do a strictly office practice, making few or no professional forays into the country, well located, neatly furnished, attractive quarters are a necessity. Three rooms will be sufficient for a start. These should include a reception room, waiting parlor, and doctor’s private office.

Size is not so important as location and furnishings. The quarters should be in a modern building of high-class reputation as to the character of its tenants. If the arrangement is such as to give an entrance into the doctor’s room from the waiting parlor, and an exit into another hall, it is preferable. This will make possible the separation of the callers the doctor has seen from those who are still waiting, and this prevents a lot of talk which may have a harmful tendency.

People, especially men, waiting to see a physician are apt to get into conversation with one another. When there is only one door serving as entrance and exit to the private office, and a caller, after seeing the physician, has to come back into the waiting parlor in order to get out there is a temptation to stop for a few moments and chat with those who are still waiting. In this way much harm, particularly in the matter of fees, may be done.

It is poor policy to give people a chance to exchange confidences. They will tell each other their opinion of the physician, the amount of the fees, etc. If these latter do not agree in amount it causes jealousies and distrust, and it becomes difficult in many cases for the physician to explain to the satisfaction of Mr. Brown why he should be charged a larger fee than Mr. Jones.

Under the best of conditions there will be too much of this sort of thing, but it may be greatly reduced by an arrangement of the rooms which will admit of callers being taken into the doctor’s office at one door and shown out at another. In one instance the waiting room of a certain specialist was crowded when one of the callers came out from the office after an interview.

“Are you going to take the treatment,” was the question put to him by one of those with whom he had been talking before he had seen the doctor.

“Not much,” was the answer in a loud tone. “That man’s a robber. He wanted $500 for the treatment.”

This frightened away a number of men nearly all of whom would have been good for $100 apiece when interviewed by the doctor under proper conditions. But they left without seeing him; actually scared off by the talk of the dissatisfied caller.

Rooms arranged as described and located in a good building will command more rental than ordinary quarters, but the investment will be a good one. There will be more money in paying $100 or $150 a month for rooms of this kind than $50 for others not similarly arranged.

Proper furnishings create a favorable impression upon callers. Neat rugs, comfortable leather covered chairs and lounges, neat tables for books and magazines, handsome curtains and bright, cheerful pictures on the wall tend to make the extraction of a good-sized fee all the easier.

No person feels like paying a big fee to a doctor of sloppy appearance who is quartered in a shabby, poorly furnished room. Shabby surroundings breed distrust. An appearance of prosperous solidity on the other hand creates confidence. It is easier to get $100 from a patient in properly furnished quarters than it is to get $5 when the doctor’s poverty stares out from every side.

One of the most successful specialists in the profession had retired with a competence. He got to speculating and lost heavily. When he had only $1,000 left he was compelled to resume practice. He rented quarters which cost him $125 a month, and furnished them magnificently at a cost of $1,250, paying $500 down. Various other outlays cut his cash capital down to $100 by the time he was ready to open his offices. Did he flinch? Not at all. He was game and knew that with any ordinary luck it would be a paying investment. He made a second fortune which he was wise enough to keep.

“It was like catching flies with a bait of sugar,” he said in discussing his method. “They swarmed in from all sides; the surroundings looked right, and I had little trouble in landing a fair percentage of the callers. If I had attempted to skimp in the rent or furnishings my purpose would have been defeated from the start.”

In taking medical treatment, as in nearly everything else, people like to deal with the successful man, and they judge of a man’s success by his surroundings. If he looks prosperous the battle is half won before the attack on the caller’s pocketbook begins.

Next to the location and furnishings of the office, and the neat, well-dressed appearance of the physician himself, comes the question of the selection of the proper reception room girl. Here almost as much tact is needed as in the physician’s private office. The right kind of girls are scarce, and when one is found she is worth much more money than the average doctor, unacquainted with the importance of the position, is willing to pay. A thoroughly competent girl is easily worth from $18 to $25 a week, yet most doctors grumble at paying $10 or $12.

It is a peculiar combination of talent, one exceedingly hard to find, that is required. The successful attendant must be prepossessing in appearance, a neat dresser, intelligent, sympathetic, chummy to a degree without being “fresh,” and, above all, must have that undefinable quality known as tact. She must have the knack of making people feel at home and comfortable on their first and all subsequent visits, without being fussy or over-prominent in her attentions.

Quiet dignity and charm of manner in a reception room girl is a combination of great value to an employer. The girl possessed of these qualities, in addition to “tact,” can be a valuable and powerful ally of the physician. She will exert a great influence in keeping patients good natured and satisfied, steer the malcontents away from opportunity to make trouble, and preserve in general the harmony that should prevail in the professional family.

We all know what a strong factor first impression is. The manner of our reception by a stranger invariably sows the seed of our opinion. If the reception is courteous and kindly without being effusive we are won; if it is cold and indifferent, or so overly effusive that deceit is apparent, we are repelled. Right here is where the reception room attendant wins or loses. It makes all the difference in the world whether the prospective patient meets the doctor for the first time pleased with the manner in which he was received, or whether he is fretted or annoyed at his treatment in the outer office.

The door leading from the reception room into the waiting parlor should always be kept closed. There is no necessity of letting the people who are waiting to see the doctor hear what is going on in the outer room. It often works harm. Besides this a new comer will announce himself more freely to the attendant when alone with her than he will when a dozen or more strangers are within hearing.

One of the furnishings of the reception, or outer room, unless the business warrants a separate department, may be an unobtrusive cabinet in which the correspondence is filed. This should always be closed so callers will not get an idea as to its contents. Men especially do not like to know that a woman is conversant with the contents of their letters to the doctor.

When a stranger enters the room the attendant should always rise from her desk, meet him half way, and enquire pleasantly:

“What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to see the doctor.”

“Step into the waiting room, please, and I’ll let him know you are here. Whom shall I announce?”

“Thomas Carroll, of Providence, Iowa. I think he expects me as I’ve had some correspondence with him.”

“All right, Mr. Carroll, I will let him know you are here.”

Taking the new comer into the waiting room the attendant should give him a paper or periodical. The man who is reading is not so apt to get into conversation with strangers as the one who is idle. Coming back into the outer office the girl closes the door, goes at once to the correspondence cabinet and takes out the packet containing Mr. Carroll’s correspondence. This she gives to the doctor via the outside door, at the same time announcing Mr. Carroll’s arrival.

No doctor who is wise will receive a caller immediately upon arrival. It creates a good impression to keep the caller waiting for a few moments even if there is nobody ahead of him. The girl goes back to the waiting room and says:

“The doctor is glad to know you are here, Mr. Carroll. He is engaged with a patient just now, but he will be through very soon, and will see you in a few minutes.”

This helps to kill time, and to convince the caller that the attendant is looking after his interests. In the meantime the doctor is reading Mr. Carroll’s letters and the answers thereto, and refreshing his memory about the case so that when Mr. Carroll is shown in the latter will be astonished by the doctor’s knowledge of his ailment and condition. The letters in the meantime are put away in a drawer out of sight.

Finally the bell rings and, if Mr. Carroll is next on the list, the girl will say:

“The doctor will see you now, Mr. Carroll,” and shows him into the sanctum. What happens when doctor and caller come together is told in another chapter. This one deals solely with the manner in which the caller should be received by the girl in charge of the outer office.

Should the caller become a patient the attendant who understands her duty will begin to evince a mild ladylike interest in his case. Without at any time becoming forward or fresh she will have a cheery word of greeting for him on his daily arrival or departure, and finally begin to comment in a delicate manner on the improvement in his appearance.

“Good morning, Mr. Carroll. You’re looking better this morning. By the way, if you want to write any letters you can dictate them to our stenographer, and you might as well have your mail sent here. I’ll be glad to look after it for you.”

Such attentions mean much to an invalid stranger and are more appreciated than they would be by a robust, healthy person. Mr. Carroll may intimate that he thinks of going to some theater in the evening, but doesn’t know where to go. Then the attendant should say:

“Well, that depends upon what you like. If it’s comedy there’s the —— —— at the Continental. Grand opera at the Richelieu; tragedy at the Shakespeare and vaudeville at the Boston. If you want to see something really funny go to the Continental. I’ll have our stenographer get your ticket when he goes out to luncheon, and that will save you from being pushed around in the crowd at the box office.”

All this, of course, is after the lapse of a week or so when Carroll has become a daily caller for treatment, and begins to think that the doctor is all right himself, and that the reception room girl is just about as near right as they make them.

No matter how many girl stenographers the doctor may keep busy in a room further down the hall, there should always be one young man for what may be called “show” purposes. Men patients don’t like the idea of having their physical troubles discussed in letters written by girls. When the young man stenographer is brought in to take dictation from a patient the latter not only appreciates the compliment, but feels confident that his troubles are known only to one of his own sex.

By all means keep the girl stenographers out of sight, and do not let the male patients know that a woman ever saw their letters, or the doctor’s replies to those letters. Adopt exactly the opposite tactics with women patients—keep the man stenographer under cover.

Despite the utmost care there will be times when the patients will get together in the waiting room and discuss the doctor and his methods, the merits or demerits of the treatment, compare fees, etc. One dissatisfied patient—and every physician has them, no matter how generally successful he may be—can create more disturbance and uneasiness in ten minutes than the doctor can overcome in a week.

It is right here that the reception room girl has a chance to prove her worth. When she finds the conversation drifting into disagreeable channels she can adroitly step in and change the subject without seeming to have a purpose in doing so. The introduction of a timely topic by a bright, entertaining woman will start the flow of talk in a new direction and in the discussion that follows criticism of the doctor will be overlooked.

One day a chronic kicker, one of those fellows who is never satisfied no matter how much is being done for him, met another patient in the reception room and began to find fault with the treatment. Without seeming to listen to the conversation, and with her mind apparently engrossed on some other topic, the attendant said:

“Oh my, how I wish I had a brother or a father to advise me.”

“Why, what’s the trouble?” very naturally enquired one of the patients—and he happened to be the “kicker.”

The girl went to relate an entirely suppositious occurrence over which she pretended to be badly wrought up; a business entanglement with a concern from which she had bought some goods on the installment plan, and about which there was a serious misunderstanding. Both men were profuse in their tenders of advice, and in their desire to be of assistance to the girl they forgot entirely the original topic. The girl kept them engaged in conversation until the “kicker” departed, and the danger was over for that day, at least.

She reported the matter to the doctor and the latter very cleverly arranged the “kicker’s” hours for treatment so there would be little chance of his finding other patients in the office.