In recent years I’ve received messages asking me to confirm or cancel an appointment with a doctor so and so on such and such a date.
Most recently this happened last weekend (15 - 16 March 2025).
Over the course of that weekend I received 3 such messages, quoting my name and phone number, but suspecting they might be scams I chose not to respond to them.
I showed the messages to a Doctor friend who looked up the doctor in question using the HotDoc app. The doctor worked at a medical centre approx 1,000 klms away from my town.
Monday morning I phoned the medical centre to sort the matter out. They told me they had fixed the problem but were unwilling to explain to me exactly what had gone wrong.
As this is not the first time this has happened to me, and maybe others as well, it seems to point to a bug in the HotDoc app.
Not a satisfactory circumstance. Noted you contacted the distant practice and asked them to check the appointment details and their data records for an entry error or ……? There is a slight possibility someone has made a data entry/record error at the practice. HotDoc operates nationally - hence any error is unlikely to be with the App. Some customer data is not practice specific from my experience of several local practices. IE if one has used HotDoc once your identity is also in their system independent of the practice.
PS
To also consider someone is using your identity. One does not need to make a booking through the App, however the practice may be using HotDoc to manage their bookings and add the details provided over the phone. Hopefully for a new customer proof of ID would be required when turning up for the appointment.
Or there is someone with a closely aligned name to the affected person and perhaps DOB, the front counter staff do not always check enough details and so the wrong person gets entered into the appointment system.
This has happened to me in the past with a very similarly named person (and even same place of birth). This was with CBA accounts, even to the point of getting their mail at times and once when they had lost their card…result was the ATM swallowed my card. It was somewhat painful getting it resolved time and time again. Last few years it has been fairly quiet that way, still “fun” at times at the counter though.
It is likely the mobile number for their patient was incorrectly entered…a wrong number which happened to be yours. You therefore were receiving notifications for their patient by accident.
If they entered the incorrect mobile number or selected the wrong person from the list of matches, it would then link to the record that was linked to the wrongly input number or personal details. This would mean the appointment details would exactly match you (name, phone number, record number, address… everything about you) not the person who was actually meant to get the appointment.
Damn, what a mess. I’ve been using Hotdoc for about 7 years and I must admit that I have never had any issues, but I can see how it might happen. Have you contacted Hotdoc itself and reported the bug? I’m sure they would appreciate it.
If the bug is in the operator and not the hotdoc app (as has been suggested) then reporting it might be an exorcise in futility. There is one other factor the app doesnt seem to have taken into account to bring up a red flag - the fact that I am a good 1,000 klms away from that medical centre. Perhaps if the app took that into account it might help avoid this schimozzle.
BB
We have a neighbour which has had issues with bookings. It happened that there were two individuals with exactly the same name. The only difference was other details as they lived in two different towns.
He tells of a visit to a skin check clinic, where his name was called while seated in the waiting room, only to find out that the other fellow with exactly the same name was also present. He met his nemesis. After a short time, the staff at the clinic checked and it happened to the the other person who was first to get their skin checked.
He understands that the other person also visits a number of specialists he also a patient.
Our neighbour has received booking confirmations for the other person. He now makes it clear, when making a booking, who he is confirming all details such as residential address, contact mobile number and DoB to make sure there isn’t a mix up.
He also ensures that the doctors have his records during the consultation, as we don’t particularly want his new records accidentally placed against the wrong name.
It might be something @BollocksBuster may wish to do as there could be another with the same name causing the confusion.
Scope for improvement. Is there a risk of fixing it for some and not others, an added complication when their bookings are impacted?
How practical it might be for those not living in a Capital City to consider?
Also given the approx 5 millions living in our two greater cities - the odds of a close match or simple keying error by a practice not that too far distant might need to be considered?
Experience of one due to work I used the services of practices more than 1,000km distant from my home address and regular GP. They varied often and could cross state borders. Similar for my partner who needed to travel for the necessary services a similar distance when we had 2 of our children. Other in the extended family from regional Aust are routinely referred to a major medical centre 100’s of km distant, or to the state Capital.
Not always though. Repeated user errors can be an indication of poor UI design etc.
Ideally, yes, if it has that location information available to it in a usable form.
However Australia is a big country. People in rural and regional areas do have to travel surprisingly large distances sometimes in order to get particular specialists. So I’m not sure what distance one would set as a ‘threshold’.
Not quite the same occurrence but I use HotDoc since it is very handy booking appointments. However some time ago when doing this it asked for credit card details. I cancelled the transaction and picked up the phone. More recent bookings haven’t requested the same details though.
Some practices might ask for credit card details to secures an appointment and confirmed the date and time. If the doctor decides to bulk bill, there will be no funds collected.
If HotDoc mistaken identity problems are common, I’d say that’s very likely. Sounds like the design of the interface HotDoc provides to GP’s offices might not be making it easy to find and select which of several Fred Daggs is the right one.
It could, for example, list the matching people, highlighting the differences between them, and make those details clickable – that is, the user can click on a detail that matches the right person, and it’ll add that as a filter, and repeat the search and the highlighting if there’s still more than one match.
For example: they click on birth date, and there are two Fred Daggs with the same one, so it then displays just those two and highlights the differences again. The user clicks on, say, mobile phone number, and there’s now only one match.
I have had this problem several times, and have attended for an appointment only to find that there was no appointment scheduled in the GP’s system. There is another customer with the same name at the practise but the appointment wasn’t for her either. I was told that hotdoc does have some issues but they regularly update the software.
Now I ring and check.
Even simple things like the duration of an appointment made when booking via hotdoc is not always correct as the range of questions it guesses from doesn’t seem to make it easy to know.
If the practice asks for credit card details and this is now happening in many larger medical and mental health systems that are run by large administration operators to save doctors time and make appointments to fill up completely, be advised that if you do NOT see the doctor face to face in one 12 month period, then there will be NO MEDICARE rebate or BULK BUILLING. So if you live too far away to actually see doctor face to face, and have internet consultation or phone conversation, you will pay full price and this is what is happening in many of these cases.
A possible solution which would need to be put to HotDoc is for the App to list ALL names with a duplicate phone number, the same as names & D.O.B. details all duplicates should be listed; then the doctors surgery receptionist can see that there is an anomaly & correct the problem. If the database already has these options then the doctors receptionist is being negligent.
This has significant privacy considerations. Personally I wouldn’t want my details accessible to anyone who can use HotDocs backend. This would allow unauthorised access to data, one hasn’t given consent for its use.
I’ve just had another worrying hiccup with hot doc app.
They ALWAYS send notifications to my ABC email address, but last week they sent a notification to my XYZ email address - an address which I have never given them.
After carefully checking my details in the hotdoc app, I can only find a record of my ABC email address but NO record of my XYZ email address.
So I cannot explain how they got hold of my XYZ address and alarms went off in my mind so I did not respond in any way to the alleged hotdoc message at my XYZ address.
in the HotDoc app.