Doctors and Fax Machines

There's something to be said for the fax machine. Years ago; they were called "telecopiers." You loaded the rotating telecopier drum with special thermal paper, pushed the handset into a rubber cradle and turned the machine on. Within a few minutes, you received a fax. To send a fax, you loaded your original on the rotating drum, dialed a number, put the handset in the rubber cradle and turned on the machine. Within a few minutes, if something didn't crap out in the meantime; your fax was successfully sent.

Fax machines graduated from crude beginnings into slick devices capable of faxing, phoning and printing. Later, HP and other companies started making "all-in-one" printers which doubled as your main printer and also faxed, copied and scanned. Most of us have one. Nowadays, unless it's a color laser, they're cheap and fairly easy to use, if you don't mind the bloatware software that comes with them that attempts to take over your computer, much like Norton.

Problem is; how much do we really fax nowadays? Copies of originals, legal documents, stuff like that. I use efax for most of my faxing, since I GET a lot of faxes as part of my job; press releases, etc. It saves lots of paper and you can just delete what you don't want to keep.

But there's one industry that, to me, stands out head-and-shoulders above all others when it comes to faxing: Medicine.

My long-time doctor is part of a four-physician DC practice that specializes in Internal Medicine and Pulmonology; diseases of the chest. All four doctors are top-shelf; all named in Washingtonian Magazine's list of top doctors.

Over the years; I've found out doctors don't take calls unless you're returning their call. But I have found they're happy to call you back...if you send them a fax! A note with your ailment or question usually gets a response within an hour or so. It may not be from them, personally; perhaps it'll be from one of their staffers, which, many times, is self-defeating. You have to tell the story yet one more time. But at least someone gets in touch with you this way. Leave a message; it might be 2-3 days before someone calls back. You might be dead by then!

Doctors have to have big patient loads to make money these days. Their overhead, by and large, is simply too high. Remember: If you don't care when they call back, leave a message. If you need them right away; send a fax. Illogical, but it works!