Here's why I hate dealing with doctors:
MrsTasty went on a new med that has a side effect of causing rashes, and they quadrupled another med she's already on that can also cause rashes, and because of her autoimmune disorder, she's subject to inflammatory rashes anyway. That's the backstory.
Called the doc's office, left a message. An hour later, someone from the office called back.
MrsTasty asked about either of the meds either causing her rash or triggering her myositis. "I'll ask the doc and let you know."
Two hours later, a call back. He's prescribing steroids for the rash and changing her beta blocker. "I can't take steroids, it's in my records, it interferes with another med I'm on."
"Let me ask the doc, I'll call you back."
An hour later, she called back again, with a change to the rash med. In the meantime, MrsTasty was reading about the new beta blocker and found a "serious" interaction with her thyroid med: "Should I really be taking this?"
"I'll have to ask the doc, I'll call you back."
By now, it's about 4PM, and when she finally called back, my wife mentioned that this is a new med, and since she's scheduled to meet with the doc in less than a week anyway, could she just stop taking it until then?
"Legally, I can't advise on any medications, so I'll have to ask the doc and call you back tomorrow. He's gone for the day."
That was a day wasted, and one 10 minute talk directly with the doc would have answered everything.
She also called her RA doctor to ask about whether the rash could be a myositis flare-up, and if he knew anything about beta blockers and myositis.
The automated answering machine said they had a new process for answering question - they sent her a text to a link, she had to download an app, register, then ask through that (never mind they already have a patient portal), and she did all that, asked her question, they requested photos, she sent those, then she got a response that her doc would answer her "within 48 hours."