The detail that matters most may arrive after the first easy answer.

First answers are the rehearsed ones. Asked how things are going, how the treatment went, why the project stalled, people reach for the version they have already told several times, because it is quick and it protects them. The truer detail usually turns up in the second or third pass, once the easy answer has been received without alarm.

Ask again in a different way after the first reply, whenever the question matters. Leave a pause where you would normally move on. Most of what you needed to hear is on the other side of it.