Short backstory; I work at a General Family Practice in Southern California and have been their front desk receptionist for a little over a year now. I am currently 22 weeks pregnant with my second baby and have been recently diagnosed with prenatal depression/anxiety. I guess I came here to rant or vent idk.. but my job there is seriously messing with my head. The patients that come in and out are awful.
The last few months have just gotten worse. I’ve had a patient threaten to call the police on me because she was late to her appointment and we had to reschedule, one guy called me “fucking r*******” over the phone for a decision that his provider made, this morning a patient called me stupid because I called her to collect a copay.
These are only a few examples. It seems that everyday I struggle with multiple patients a day that are just terrible people and don’t even see me as a person. The polices and procedures are not my call, but somehow I am always the one to blame. On top of all of this, we have no clinic manager, no training, and one person that works for our billing department and he is located in Mexico! My coworkers never want to help in the front and the girls that have been there for 5+ years usually cower and hide from these said patients. Our director and the doctor are never in the office for support either.
I cried in the bathroom today after dealing with a very difficult patient. I try my best and always go into work with a positive attitude, but without fail, get beat down by these people by 9AM.
Anyone else go through this and how can I cope? Are there exercises or breathing techniques or meditation tips ?? I’m at a loss.