Handle a health message without having to judge it
Handle any message or call that says it is your doctor, your hospital or Medicare, with one move that works whether it is genuine or not.
Everybody talks about the first mistake: believing a fraud. Almost nobody talks about the second, which is quietly more common — deleting a genuine screening reminder or a changed appointment.
Both come from the same place: looking at a message and trying to decide about it. Reach the service by a route you already had, and the message stops mattering.
Key points
- Reach the service by a route you chose, instead of judging any message
- Answer the phone freely, and pause at the sentence where something is asked of you
- Say the one sentence that ends any doubtful call, politely and without justifying it
- Stop deleting genuine reminders, and check the junk folder now and then
What to remember
- Answer freely. The pause happens the moment something is asked of you, not the moment the phone rings.
- You are not judging the message. You are noticing a request, and then doing what you would have done anyway.
Try this
Write your doctor’s office number, taken from an appointment slip or a prescription label, on a card by the phone. That number is your own route, and having it to hand makes the pause natural.
Practice: Handle a health message without having to judge it. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.