Voicemail: How to hear New Messages FIRST?

Is there any way to force playback of new voicemail messages first of all? Because holy hell, is it ever annoying to dial in for some time-critical vm and be forced to wade through six recitations of "Saved message...due for automatic deletion..." before I can proceed to hear from my sister about my mother's visit to the ER. My month-old messages are not the priority, so this feature is reliably infuriating.