Examining telephone calls in ambulatory oncology.

A large component of ambulatory oncology practice is management of telephone calls placed to and from the practice between outpatient appointments, but they are not a reimbursable service, they require staff resources, and they place an unpredictable demand on workload. In this study, telephone calls were examined at a private medical oncology practice to define telephone call volume and distribution in an active ambulatory oncology practice, describe the callers and reasons for calls, and examine any differences in call volume by practice characteristics.