Emails: permanent written record I can refer to later
Can reply in my own time
Low labour
Low resource use
Phone call: Times/dates mentioned will be forgotten often
Active demand of time
I don't pick up because that phone number looks weird but also my phone's vibrate function is weak
High labour
High data cost per information
My shrink's office seems to want to keep billing information and past/present appointments secret. (This also seems to be worse in local industry, everything has to be a meeting instead of a two line email)
well, if you commit to something in writing you can actually be held to it, unlike calls
And it's cheap/universal if you already have employees standing around (or more likely, actually working and just expected to multitask manning the phones). Plus its harder to automate and spam phone calls than emails. Plus for a long time a lot of people in the types of jobs tasked with answering phones for small businesses or locations of large ones, have been functionally tech-illiterate if not actually illiterate. You'd be surprised how many people over 50 never learned to computer (not like poorly, but almost completely unable)
Your shrink is probably worried about HIPAA compliance if in the US
Americans are wild about HIPAA when there's such limited enforcement
(Most of the ones since 2019 are penalties for companies refusing to provide medical information to patients)
yeah. I mean good that medical providers take it seriously, but the solution in any sane world would not be to forgo digital transfer of information entirely
Australia, but maybe. They send emails if I ask, but their preference is for a secretary to call about my upcoming appointment