LineIn

When you move the simple contacts online, you do not lower the average difficulty of a phone call. You raise it.

The patients comfortable with an online form, clear about what they need, route themselves. What is left on the phone is the residue, and the residue skews toward complexity. People who do not know which service they need. People who are anxious or managing several things at once. People for whom the phone is the only channel they will use.

The eight o'clock scramble already hit older patients hardest. As the channel narrows to those who need it most, that difficulty concentrates, it does not disappear.

So the phone is not the legacy channel to shrink and switch off. In a digital-first model it becomes the channel where the hardest contacts land, and where directing the patient to the right place matters most.

Falling call volume can hide a rising support requirement per call. Plan for the first and ignore the second, and accessibility quietly erodes.

The full piece works through what the residual cohort actually needs. Worth a read if you are moving access online.

Link in comments.