Anyone know if there is a way to "LOCK" settings on an iPhone?

[Model35mech]

The iPhone that I use seems to not hold its settings.

We've learned how to find the menu to select "allow all calls", but, yet, many phone calls often never result in the incoming ringtone. Days afterward when one of us bothers to check "recent" calls we will find a phone number that we never picked up. And I suppose due to HIPPA rules, no voicemail is actually recorded.

Our lives really don't revolve around the phone and I don't carry it. I don't really have any of its menus memorized. I get 3-4 calls directed at me per year outside of the periods following 6 month check-ups etc, when there is more telephone use. We deem health related calls important and don't like to miss them. It's common for the V.A. to call just once. If you miss it, you missed it. They won't call again. It's not really the path you want your internal medicine exam results to drift off into the ether.

Even our refrigerator has dependable a way to "LOCK" its settings, I wish I could master that for the iPhone.

[TwilightZone]

1. Not currently possible, according to the Apple support forum.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255226099

[usonian]

2. Don't you get a red notification of a missed call? I sure do.

Given my experience with the red dots, do check your notifications menu.

I don't use any distinctive ringtones, though that might help. ???
https://www.slashgear.com/1389357/iphone-alerts-trick-customize/
What ringtone for the VA? Hmmmmm.

[EarlG]

3. This doesn't really answer your question about locking the settings, but

does your phone have a little physical switch on the outside which turns the ringer on and off? My iPhone has one, and I usually keep it in the off position otherwise the phone makes annoying beeping and bonging sounds all day. However this does mean that when someone calls, the phone vibrates instead of rings, so sometimes I will miss calls (not that it matters because 99% of the people who call me are spammers).

Anyway just a thought -- sometimes I do want the phone to ring but it doesn't because I forget that I have the little switch set to off. Just wondering if that might be a factor, it could explain why the phone sometimes rings and sometimes doesn't.

[canetoad]

4. This

I accidentally turn mine off all the time.

[Model35mech]

6. Generally it rings at some incoming everyday

I don't use the phone much, I haven't recieved a call from a friend or relative in more than a decade

But your advice about possible presence of a switch that turns off the ring-tone is definitely something I will look for. We need to be aware of it and how it works if this phone has one.

[CloudWatcher]

5. Not answering the question you asked, but ....

Re: "It's common for the V.A. to call just once. If you miss it, you missed it. They won't call again."

Do you have/use email? And a login on the VA patient portal at https://www.myhealth.va.gov ?

I'm not a VA patient, but my health providers flood me with both emails and texts to let me know to login to their patient portals to read the latest in test results and comms with the doctors. Depending on phone calls is both slow and unreliable, if it's available I'd try and figure out the portals.

"... due to HIPPA rules, no voicemail is actually recorded."

Again, I don't know about the VA, but there's a checkbox on the forms where I give doctors my phone number that tells them if it's ok (or not) to leave detailed messages. I.e. you "should" be able to tell them it's ok to leave lab results in a voicemail.

Hope this helps. Again I'm not a VA customer, so it's possible they don't do any of what I'm talking about ))