update: my doctor’s office constantly leaves me on hold — how do I deal with this at work?

by Alison Green on February 17, 2025

Remember the letter-writer whose doctor’s office constantly left them on hold while they needed to be working? Here’s the update.

I wrote in a few months ago about struggling to schedule doctor’s appointments when I worked at a busy reception desk. Thanks very much to both you and the kind commenters who offered sympathy and suggestions. It was nice to receive confirmation that there wasn’t some easy solution I was missing, and I appreciated the suggestions to use an earpiece from other people who’d done front desk work.

I also saw a few suggestions that my question wasn’t really a work question, which got me thinking about why I’d written in the first place. The real concern underwriting my (admittedly not well-phrased!) question was that having to make these calls was hurting my standing at work. I am (mis)classified as exempt and expected to remain available to answer the phone and address clients during my lunch. Any time I spend where I’m not visibly working as hard as possible is regarded with suspicion, and as I mentioned in the original letter, it has been suggested that I might have to start using vacation or sick time to cover these calls I have to make outside my nonexistent break time. When I wrote in I was concerned less with dealing with my doctor’s office (which I felt sucked and wasn’t going to change) and more with managing the optics/potential consequences at a workplace that, on reflection, also sucks and also isn’t going to change.

So ultimately, I did resolve the doctor’s office problem with doctor’s office solutions. First, I spoke with my doctor, and they gave me permission to use the client portal’s chat functionality, which is supposed to be exclusively for non-urgent medical questions, to request appointments. But more importantly, I changed one of my medications to something I can self-administer at home instead of one I have to go to the doctor’s office multiple times a year for. This reduces the frequency of my scheduling attempts and has the added benefit of saving me sick time. I’m lucky I had this as an option.

I hope this information is helpful to anyone else in a similar situation, and I hope in a future update I’ll be able to tell you I’m working somewhere different.

Me again, here to say that if you’re a receptionist you’re almost certainly not legally allowed to be treated as exempt, and they owe you overtime pay (including back pay) and you should contact an employment lawyer in your state. Meanwhile, carefully log all the hours you work so there’s a record of what you’re owed.

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  1. Elizabeth West*

    The exempt thing is very shady — reception typically does not meet even the basic standards for exempt classification. Fingers crossed that you find a much better job, OP!

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    1. Bruce*

      My company has reclassified professional engineers as hourly based on their salary and type of work, to have a receptionist be “exempt” with no breaks and no lunch hour is a huge red flag. I’m glad the OP has been able to work out their issue with the doctor’s office, but their employer sucks in general.

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      1. tangerineRose*

        No breaks and no lunch hour sound very concerning. I got those back in the day when I worked in fast food! At least if I worked enough hours. They were actually pretty firm about breaks.

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    3. goddessoftransitory*

      If you are on lunch, you are ON LUNCH. If this company wants to sniff around you with raised eyebrows rather than hire adequate front desk coverage that’s a much bigger problem than trying to make appointments, LW! Definitely record everything–this is wage theft.

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      1. PegS*

        Me neither. Certainly there are times when I’m too busy to take my lunch or I eat while working, but there’s never an explicit expectation that I’m supposed to work during lunch. But I’m also not paid a receptionist’s salary. I can’t imagine any receptionist being paid enough to truly qualify as exempt. This is definitely shady.

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    2. CeeDoo*

      It doesn’t, officially. Being exempt is supposed to mean that you are required to finish your tasks, even if that causes you to work more (or less) than 40 hours a week. It’s supposed to even out. But “exempt” for many companies is just a trap to keep you working over 40 hours a week with no overtime, no comp time, etc.

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    3. Michelle Smith*

      Sure. In the United States, there is no federal law that says an exempt employee is entitled to a lunch break at all. State specific laws obviously can vary, but OP may not live in a state that mandates those breaks. Hope that helps.

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      1. On Hold OP*

        OP here – I work in a state that absolutely requires a 30 minute break every 6 hours. I do know this (thanks to a prior job), and do also know (thanks to this website) that I shouldn’t be exempt, but suffice to say bringing in a lawyer would be an absolutely nuclear option that in a company that has already made it clear how petty and vindictive it can be to employees who leave NORMALLY, and I would need to already have one foot out the door to do it.

        And to answer the inevitable question of why I’m in this situation – my predecessor’s title used to be one step higher than mine (office manager rather than office administrator) and she did payroll as well. When I was hired, they took payroll away from my duties since I’d never done that before, and never bothered training me to take it back – not realizing that means I almost certainly no longer qualify as exempt. But in truth, I think she was only taught payroll and given a manager title by the previous (even WORSE if you can believe it) owners as a way to avoid paying her overtime – it’s a seasonal business and it’s been made very clear to me that during the busy season I’m expected to stay 10-12 hours a day like everyone else. With no overtime. And no real breaks. On an admin salary.

        Like I said: I hope in a future update I’ll be able to tell you I’m working somewhere else. I’ve been hanging on because (as you might suspect) I really need the health insurance, and I was hoping to leave with a good reference… but seeing it laid out so clearly by Alison, I think the time for worrying about the latter might have passed.

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        1. Elizabeth West*

          Yeah, I don’t think even the Blessed Virgin Mary would get a good reference from this company. :P Is there a coworker you can line up as a reference?

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        2. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, especially if your company is already “petty and vindictive” towards any employees who leave, I think getting a good reference is going to be difficult. You almost certainly can’t use it to escape your current job, either.

          Keep good notes anyway. After you have landed your next job, seriously consider lawyering up and getting that backpay. “I had to sue them for back pay” is a *really good* explanation for any bad reference they’re going to give you anyway.

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          1. goddessoftransitory*

            Yes: wage theft is a perfectly good reason to give! Also, if they’re this bad I would think at least some other employers in the area have already heard of their shenanigans. Reputation is not just “we can mess you up when you leave.” They have one as well and I’d bet a dollar it’s not a good one.

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          2. Johnny Slick*

            Yeah and to add to this, most companies absolutely do not do stuff like this. I completely understand that when you’re new to the workforce, whatever the current company does will seem like The Way, but receptionists being hourly-exempt is a very, very basic, ground-level maneuver that even scummy places only try on new or desperate employees. LW you may have other reasons for staying but this is a massive red flag at the least.

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            1. On Hold OP*

              This is a professional service industry where absolutely toxic, health-destroying levels of overtime are still very much the norm during the busy season, and where even the senior professionals are not paid commensurate to that level of work (at least in my area). From my employers’ perspective, they aren’t asking anything of me that they don’t already do themselves and (in their minds) they aren’t making THAT much more than me. I know that doesn’t make them right, but it’s hard to push back on an 11-hour day when your boss is working a 15-hour one – especially when they’ve made it very clear that they think I’m a slacker and a whiner, and that it’s my fault that I didn’t interpret their saying I’d be working some overtime in the busy season to mean I’d be working more overtime with less pay than several of the lower-rung professionals in the office.

              As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve been staying because I need the health insurance and had hoped to wrangle a good reference out of this place (I bring some unique skills from an unrelated prior profession that no one else has in the office, and when they need those skills they ADORE me), but the more I write in this comment section the more ridiculous that second part seems.

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              1. peony*

                I mean, if it’s a tax office…those aren’t exactly in short supply. Or medical billing. I’m just trying to think, off the top of my head, of places with REALLY busy seasons that would also be prone to messed up environments like this and tax season is happening right now. And tax offices would absolutely be having those kinds of hours and ironically some of them would be that dysfunctional. But they’re also a dime a dozen, thanks to the mess that is the US tax code.

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        3. fhqwhgads*

          FYI, my understanding is there’s a 3 year statute of limitations on bringing a claim for this. So keep your records asap, so that when you do get out, you get them for all that back OT. I, sadly, learned I’d been misclassified by reading this site, but I learned it 4 years after leaving that job.

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          1. On Hold OP*

            Great news: My third anniversary here isn’t until October and my state AGO is holding a free Wage Theft Clinic in my area in May. So I guess we’ll see how that shakes out!

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            1. emmelemm*

              You should 100% be at that Wage Theft Clinic, taking notes! Hopefully you’ll be gone before May, but still go anyway!

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      2. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        This is my take. Typically if you are exempt from overtime it means that you might not have a lunch break because of business needs. Now a good and fair employer will have this as an occasional thing. Like you might have a working lunch meeting or a unexpected crisis happens that you need to work through. But good companies will make this only a rare event and will let you leave early or something another day. It sounds like OP’s company is bad and is trying to make her work while she is on break.

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    5. MigraineMonth*

      “Exempt from overtime” is supposed to be a category of well-paid professional with a lot of discretion over which hours they work. Someone who might choose to work through lunch (if no state laws forbid it) and stay late one night, then take the next afternoon off to go golfing. Or someone who works 60-hour weeks before an event, then 20-hour weeks after it.

      In practice, it is often inappropriately applied to employees with coverage-based work in order to avoid paying them the overtime pay they are entitled to.

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  3. Heather*

    Not a receptionist but can definitely sympathize with feeling like there’s no good time to make private phone calls during business hours in a shared office space. It’s the primary reason I mostly only work with doctors and businesses that allow me to make appointments online or communicate through online portals or email.

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    1. Strive to Excel*

      +1000 for any business that requires being in-person for no good reason! Doctor’s appointments are one thing – obviously your optometrist can’t diagnose you over the phone. But I’m side-eying my bank. They allow CDs to be opened online but to close them you have to come in and talk to someone. In person. During business hours.

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        1. MigraineMonth*

          Or at least discourage you from closing the CD by making it a hassle. Like the online loan portal that lets you pay the interest automatically, but to pay down your principal early you have to arrange to send a paper check to a different address.

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          2. Indolent Libertine*

            Yeah, for our car loan we can make regular payments online, but to pay extra toward the principal we have to do that over the phone with a human. We *can* make extra payments online, but there’s no way using that process to have those classified as principal reductions; they’ll just count those as P&I monthly payments made in advance and push out the due date of the next payment. They really don’t want us to get out from under any of what we might owe them…

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      2. Lady Lessa*

        I’ve been dealing with some CD’s lately, and started the process in person, but I was lucky. That bank had a branch about 15 minutes away from work, and they were open until 6 pm most days. (I like being able to make an appointment via their website.

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    2. Artemesia*

      I was a teacher before cell phones and one of the biggest hassles was trying to talk to a doctor’s office — you really want to make that call to the gynecologist from the principal’s receptionist’s phone or in the teacher’s room surrounded by other people.

      I’m glad the OP was able to work out a way to make appointments without being on cold; my doctor’s office is part of a medical center and they do call backs if there is a long wait and also regular appointments can be scheduled on line.

      Hope the OP can get out of this exploitive setting. Exempt my bippy.

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    3. One Duck In A Row*

      Ugh, yeah, it’s so difficult to work in an open office environment and have to deal with this. Hard enough when the calls can be scheduled or made by me, but even worse when I need to wait for a call back or receive unexpected calls, such as from specialty pharmacies who expect me to answer all sorts of personal questions out loud for them before they will send the medication the actual doctor prescribed with the intent that I receive it.

      This is especially difficult because I have a child who receives care for something that is not something I want to or even feel safe sharing with just any co-worker. Something that has become politicized, and at this point could be weaponized against our family if the wrong person has access to that information. So anyway, super cool to have to choose between putting off conversations about extremely time sensitive medical treatment info and having those conversations within earshot of people who have no business having access to that info.

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      1. On Hold OP*

        I feel for you – if I’m reading between the lines correctly, I believe your child and I might have that highly politicized thing in common. I’m glad they have you looking out for them.

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  4. boof*

    I’m glad your doctor’s office at least was willing to work with you to make things easier! (as a doc; there’s lots of stuff I don’t know unless someone brings it up to me, or at least my direct team; I don’t necessarily know what your copays are, what your phone wait times are, or how much of an inconvenience various scheduling logistics are for you! In the short term it can be hard to do much with a schedule but in the long term there’s certainly things we can adjust! We might forget though so keep reminding if something isn’t lining up right it’s probably not because we stopped caring and more because we don’t/can’t keep all scheduling preferences highlighted in the chart in a way that everyone can see every time they look – so just politely ask for any changes that would be helpful please!)
    Now, hopefully your work gets with the program or you can find a job that doesn’t do illegal things!!!!

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    1. Nightengale*

      as a doctor in an outpatient office – I think all of us who work outpatient should be call our own phone tree at least once a year and try each option.

      There’s a lot of things about the patient experience I don’t know unless someone tells me, but phone experience doesn’t have to be one of them.

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      2. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        Yes! I think this actually happened recently at my doctors office. I see a chiropractor through my local hospital system. There was never a direct line I could call for their scheduling. I even asked. I had to call the number for the whole department (neurology, pain management, chiropractic and physical therapy) wait on hold for them to answer only to be transferred to the scheduling department for Chiropractic. Some days I’d be on hold longer than it was to make the actual appointment. And it always seemed like whoever answered first was annoyed that they had to transfer me.

        Now they have a new phone tree system and press the number for scheduling for chiropractic. No more annoyed front desk people! (I’m a front desk person so I get it)

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      3. boof*

        I get what you’re saying but I’m just emphasizing that it’s worth bringing up these kinds of issues with your doctor/team if they’re an issue rather than assuming they know / that nothing can be tweaked! In my case our triage line/phone tree/accessibility once in the system isn’t an issue, but plenty of things can be and I don’t always know / can’t always guess what the problems are.

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    2. Autumn*

      Another thing to be aware of is whether or not all the people who answer the phone know the rules for scheduling a new patient appointment. We have an office giving my husband the run around about scheduling an appointment. The chief sticking point seems to be who has made the referral, complicated by unclear instructions and provider vacations. Don’t make it seem to patients like they have no right to seek an appointment, and that they don’t know what they are talking about in explaining the problem. (I know some don’t know)

      What chaps my hyde the most? It will most likely take only one appointment to confirm what we already suspect.

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  5. Tradd*

    I’m glad the OP was able to resolve her situation with the doctor’s office. I have to say that it seems like doctor’s offices and the like have gotten much less friendly for working people. I had the same family doctor until I graduated from college. The doctors worked late one evening a week, I think until 7pm, plus 9-12 on Saturday mornings. So much easier for working people to go to the doctor without having to take a lot of time off work. The later and Saturday appointments were reserved for people who worked regular day time schedules. I remember this so well as a relative worked as a receptionist at this doctors’ office.

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    1. Strive to Excel*

      My dentist offers 6:30 AM appointments for tooth cleanings on some days. It makes my life much easier to be able to stop in before work and not have to use PTO.

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    2. Elizabeth West*

      I was super lucky that the orthopedist and the PT I needed in 2023 are right down the street from me. My PCP too. It takes no time at all to zip down there and back. Even the doc in Needham was an easy drive.

      I have an appointment on Friday in a different part of town I’ve never been to — should be fun! Not!

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      1. Tradd*

        My GP has appts between 9 am and 3 pm only. The one specialist I see a couple of times a year will go as late as 5. But GP and specialist are 30-45 minutes away.

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      1. Bast*

        I’ve seen some places offset the extra hours of staying late by either closing early on Friday (or being closed entirely on Friday) and/or offering one Saturday a month. My dentist’s office offers late Tuesday appointments and also one Saturday morning a month, but it is a larger office so my understanding is that it isn’t just one person staying late/doing Saturdays, but rather a rotation. This could be harder to achieve in a one man band type of office, but I can still see perhaps doing a half day on Friday and using those extra hours another day of the week to compensate. The places that offer these type of hours tend to be the more popular offices and the weekends tend to book out months in advance.

        Now specialists’ hours are truly awful — want to see a neurologist? Only open Tues, Wed, and Thurs from 10 to 3 and the next opening is 8 months away, so just suffer until then.

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      2. student doctor*

        A lot of primary care doctors are already working nights and weekends to keep up with onerous charting requirements, they’re just not seeing patients during that time.

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    4. boof*

      Lots of health care is feeling the strain /reducing staffing. Where does all the money go? Not even sure anymore. Not my pocket! (academic oncologist – I don’t scoff at my income it’s certainly a decent living but I’m pretty sure private practice makes 2-3x or more than I do and my salary’s not going up either despite everything else costing more!)

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    5. Three Cats in a Trenchcoat*

      I think a lot of it has to do with the business of medicine – there are fewer and fewer truly independent clinicians, and with everyone being swallowed up by groups/hospitals there is less and less flexibility for scheduling.

      I don’t get a lunch break myself (patients back to back all day), so I’m a lot less likely to want to give more hours later.

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  6. Wilbur*

    Isn’t the misclassification something they could rectify by going to their state department of labor? I don’t know if that’s considered the nuclear option, but it is free while lawyers are typically not.

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    1. Ally McBeal*

      I would hope that a lawyer would work on contingency here, if more is needed beyond a strongly worded letter on the law firm’s letterhead (“please be advised that pursuant to Statute XYZ, Jane Smith has been misclassified as an exempt employee and is entitled to back wages totalling $____”). That letter shouldn’t cost more than a couple hundred bucks, which would pay for itself upon receipt of back wages.

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      1. MassMatt*

        OP has said this employer is petty and vindictive even when people leave under normal circumstances, and in comments here said she is viewed as a lazy whiner because she has to talk with her doctor’s office and dislikes working unpaid overtime.

        I’m afraid this letter or any other action on the wage theft is going to have to wait until after she leaves.

        OP needs to focus on getting another job, THEN she can follow up on the wage theft.

        I would add—OP mentions needing the health insurance, but consider that working this much (unpaid) overtime and for such toxic employers is bound to affect your health as well as your sense of normalcy.

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        1. On Hold OP*

          Oh, trust me – the thing that’s making this year the guaranteed final year is that it has absolutely damaged my health.

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  7. Meat Oatmeal*

    There are lots of lawyers who’d work on contingency if there are a lot of misclassified employees working for the same employer because then the payout stands to be big. Fewer who will do contingency for an individual employee in this situation.

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  8. Frankie*

    Thank you for your note to OP Alison – I was bursting at the seams to get into the comments to say the same thing.

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  9. merida*

    Oh OP, I hope you are able to use a lawyer and get the backpay you deserve! I think receptionist work at a busy company would still be hard even when the minimum legal break requirements are met, so this sounds especially miserable. Unnecessarily added stress to an already stressful job. How do you get to eat lunch??

    I’d also recommend reporting to the Department of Labor. A few years ago I considered reporting my then-employer to the Wage and Hour Division of the DoL for consistently making me work overtime under the table as an hourly and non-exempt employee. I was wildly burnt out – ha, I wonder why! – so I ended up not going through the work of reporting and left as soon as I found a new job, ready to leave it all behind. But if you have the energy, please consider looking into this. They have a number you can call to ask about laws if you’re not sure if your situation applies. 1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243) And thankfully, it says their phone line is open on weekends. :)

    Wouldn’t it be such poetic justice for upper management to be required to hold themselves to the lawless and impossible standards that they hold their receptionists to…

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    1. On Hold OP*

      I alternate between wolfing it down at my desk between interruptions or just not eating. It’s not great!!!

      Thanks for this addition. I appreciate having a number I can call to ask questions without having to pay lawyer money while I figure out what I want to do.

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      1. merida*

        Oh no, that sounds like an incredibly stressful way to try to eat lunch!! May you find much better things in the future, OP – like backpay, and hopefully a new job soon that actually deserves to have you!

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    2. merida*

      Oops! I’m sorry, you can scratch what I said about reporting to the DoL. I see now on the DoL gov website that the DoL only investigates complaints on Fair Labor Standards Act policies, and break times are somehow not included in that. Bummer. :(

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      1. On Hold OP*

        It’s all good; this reminded me that my state attorney general’s office would probably be a good resource, and they also have an information line I plan to call.

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      2. Observer*

        DoL only investigates complaints on Fair Labor Standards Act policies

        If the LW is being treated as exempt, I’d be willing to bet that they are not being paid for all of their hours, and certainly not time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week. And that is the *classic* FLSA violation.

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  10. Mary*

    For number 2 – they could also be worried about burnout. I managed someone who came from a poorly managed team and I had to work with them to stop working extra hours, etc. because it wasn’t needed and I wanted them to stay for the long haul. Also, overdoing can result in mistakes and rework for you and everyone else. Admittedly, this is more likely the nature of the feedback when it comes from a supervisor than a coworker, but did want to say this is also a possibility.

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