33c is thrilled to have Doximity as a sponsor this week. The ideas below, however, are shaped and written on my own.

You might not have noticed it, but last week Doximity Dialer was rolled into the Doximity app making it part of the growing set of Doximity offerings for health care professionals (For a summary of what Doximity is up to, see my post last month when they hit their one millionth member).

Doximity helps maintain privacy in an increasingly exposed world

Doximity solves a problem that every health professional has to face: maintaining privacy in a world of increasing exposure. The way it works is that you use the Dialer feature to call your patients from your cell. But what your patients see is the number of your office and not your personal phone. You can set the caller ID number to whatever you like. This helps avoid the 3 AM call back to your cell with a follow-up question when you’re not on call.

There is also a recent calls list for frequent callers with evolving issues. And the latest version of Epic Haiku offers providers the option to call out using the dialer feature on the Doximity app. It’s baked in to the Epic workflow.

So is the Dialer feature designed to bamboozle patients? Not at all. In fact, it stops the nonsensical cycle of patient-not-answering-because-they-thought-it-was-a-telemarketer followed by the doctor voicemail and immediate doctor call back hoping the patient picks up after hearing the voicemail. Honestly, I want to get my calls done as efficiently as my patients want to be called. But the game of caller ID cat-and-mouse has got to stop. And that works as much for patients as doctors.

The phone (and Dialer) as the killer communications app

This thing apparently has some serious traction. Dialer has become a trusted in-line tool to connect physicians and patients with 5.6 million calls have placed to date using Dialer. Doximity estimates that this saves doctors an average of 20 minutes per day.

So it seems that despite the growing number of flashy applications that allow doctors to connect via text and video, the phone remains the go to tool for connection when not face-to-face.

Doximity’s evolution has been remarkable. What began as a pharmacy directory evolved into a social network and ultimately into a hub for health care provider services. Dialer is just the most recent iteration of an application that is constantly moving to meet the needs of providers where they’re at.

So if you’ve used Doximity Dialer in the past, you’ll now find it right on your Doximity app. If you’re not tuned in to the Dialer feature on Doximity, check it out. It’s my go-to.

And for grins, are there times when I actually give patients my phone number? Yes, but not very often. See my reasoning here.