Enhanced 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for Webex Calling

According to current guidelines, a person attempting to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Veterans Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255 is required to dial the standard 10-digit number in order to reach them.

Earlier this summer, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that 988 will be the new, easy-to-remember three-digit phone number for Americans in crisis to call to speak to a suicide prevention specialist or mental health crisis counselor. This new 988 number will be available nationwide starting July 16, 2020.

Even though the phone number 988 is not currently a national calling code, you can still connect with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 1-800-273-8255 with Webex Calling, even though 988 is not a nationwide phone number right now.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Veterans Crisis Line will be redirected to the 988 number from July 16, 2022 onwards. Taking that first step was the creation of a national hotline for suicide prevention and mental health crisis support with a 3-digit access code. As outlined by the FCC, 988 is the 3-digit number that users should dial for Lifeline services, and all telecommunication companies, interconnected VoIP providers, and one-way VoIP providers (together, covered providers) are required to make any network changes necessary before July 16, 2022, to ensure users can reach Lifeline by dialing 988. The goal of these rules is to reduce stigma around suicide and mental health crises, which will result in a reduction of suicides and mental health crises and in turn, ultimately save more lives.

Webex Calling behavior for 988

• Calls to 988 are not classified as emergency calls by Cisco, and they are considered toll-free calls.

• Extension numbers such as 988 cannot be assigned to users in the United States (US). The call will be routed to the extension instead of the suicide hotline if you already have a user with 988 as an extension.

• It is not possible to dial +1988, 1988 or other dialing patterns.

• It is possible to dial +988 as an outbound number.

• Unlike RedSky, which handles emergency calls, calls are not routed to RedSky.

• This call does not have any additional or special headers.

• Using 988, Webex Calling sends a call to 1800 toll-free, which Webex Calling translates.

• Across all 988 calls, 1-800-273-8255 appears as the called number on the Call Detail Record (CDR).