After-hours telephone calls in a family practice residency: volume, seriousness, and patient satisfaction

After-hours calls are common in primary care physicians' practices. Calls may be unnecessary from the physician's perspective, but patients may have a different concept of the importance of reaching their physician immediately. This study's purpose was to compare physician and patient perceptions of the same telephone call episode.

Family practice residents (n = 19) recorded all patient-initiated after-hours telephone contacts (n = 192) during July 1993. Study personnel then telephoned, within 1 week of their call, the patients who made the calls. Patients were asked about the reason for their call, its seriousness, and their satisfaction with the handling of their problem.

During the study month, 1.1 after-hours calls were received for every 10 office visits. A substantial minority of patients (29%) rated their problems in the highest severity category, while physicians assigned only 8% of calls the highest severity rating. The majority of patients (76.7%) were satisfied with how their after-hours calls were handled.

In matched cases, physicians and patients perceive about the same proportion of calls to be routine versus more severe. Although patient satisfaction was high, further research into causes of dissatisfaction is needed.