Xs, Os, and General Creepiness

I came to work the other morning to discover several Hershey Kisses on the desk of one of our doctors. I found out later that they were left by a female secretary in the office, and it was her "favorite" doctor. Later that day, as he walked past her desk, she dropped to her knees in front of him and said, "I will do ANYTHING to get you to do your dictation."



During the rest of the week, I received several reports of her chasing after this physician in the parking lot and even going into his office and closing the door, when I wasn't in the office.



Although I felt sure the doctor was not comfortable with any of this, the other staff members were not too comfortable at all! How would you handle this, fire her? Or am I just over reacting? I realize that it feels like you have to beg particular physicians sometimes to get them to do their dication this situation is just creepy to me.

Just Let It Hang

"Ma'am is it okay if I could change this channel?"

While I was busy doing some coding the other day, one of our patients interrupted me to ask this question. She wanted to change the channel from MSNBC so that she could watch Passions. Now I understand the needs of a soap watcher. I might not get the Passion-watching people but GH people totally make sense to me.

However, once the woman had changed the channel to Passions, she just made herself at home in the waiting room. I noticed her flinch a bit when her name was called to go into the exam room as the storyline featuring Fancy and Luis was heating up.

Sometimes our clients just make me laugh.

And after a relaxing weekend...

I came to the office knowing that I would soon be finished with the most recent wave of hiring at the offixe. After placing an ad in the paper for an opening in my office, I received over 100 applications within a week. I weeded out about 75 non-qualified resumes and start calling the perspective new employees in for interviews.

I was amazed at the applicants! When asking one person why she left her previous employer, she proceeded to tell me that she had been reprimanded for speaking to patients rudely... after inquiring further she became very loud, rude, and angry! She then stated that after being reprimanded twice and then a third time she was fired. She wondered out loud why they felt the need to fire her!!!

One other applicant came to the interview in flip-flops and pants made out of t-shirt material. It wasn't even a "casual Friday" type outfit. Instead it was stained and probably fit the applicant better a few years ago.

Yet another came in and discussed her distant past life on cocaine and alcohol. On one hand it means that she's pretty honest, on the other.... well you know what the other is. Plus this "past life" was about a year ago. Not exactly a distant enogh past for my taste.

And finally, a young lady "confided" in me how lousy her former boss was to be around. She then dropped to her knees and begged me for a job.

Do you find yourself counseling these people, as I do? Or do you just stand there amazed and send them out the door?

Excuse Me

Hi, excuse me... hate to interrupt and all, but it's 2:31, you are supposed to be WORKING!

Not texting.
Not out on your 5th break of the day.
And not yelling out your parenting issues with your ex.

After confronting an employee about excessive personal phone calls on the company phone, during company time, I then noticed that she just moved her calls to her cell phone. Other employees were complaining. Not only was she making phone calls, but she was also spending a huge amount of time sending text messages. In this day and time, employees have access to their cell phone, text messages and even web based email. Where do we draw the line in snooping on them? Do you ever feel like a babysitter? Or, do you feel like they are being ludicrous in thinking that this behavior is acceptable?

Kitchen Rant

I work with adults right?


Adults who should know that dishes don't clean themselves? Adults who know that their nasty, smelly food won't throw itself away? Ha. I wish!



Once again it appears that my office believes that my title as MOM means that I am their mom. If you came in early this morning you would have found me throwing away moldy tupperware and crusted over cheap plates. The microwave is just going to have to wait for another time but goodness knows that it needs a good scrubbing.

Boo!

Happy Halloween!

I don't seem to have time to update between doorbell rings. I appear to be popular!

You made an appointment for a reason, right?

I have been having some frusterations with patients recently. Recently, our office has been having no-shows left and right. It might be summer. Or possibly miraculous cures. I don't know. Well, it's probably not a cure as the patients usually call within the week asking to be fit into the schedule for the following day.

Ha!

How am I supposed to run a smooth office with people not showing up?
Or more importantly how do I get into the mood for client retention when I want to sic Jean-Claude on our patients!

Catch 22

Let's talk about the "famous" modifier 22! I wish I had a dollar for the many times have I had an excited doctor call me up and say "well, I did a lot of extra work on this case; we can use the modifier 22 and bill for more money!" Yes, you can go off to a coding class, and they will tell you about the wonderful modifier 22... Even the sales reps for some of the surgical supplies/equipment companies openly discuss this mystical modifier in the hospital hallways! The reality is, it will not get you more money... at best it will hold up your claim for three times the normal processing time... and then cause the insurance companies to start auditing your operative notes!
What have you experienced?

Can't Hardly Wait

Let me tell ya, I can hardly wait to take off this weekend for the MGMA conference! One more day...

Billing Question

Have you thought about charging patients a monthly finance charge for late paying accounts? If you notified them upfront, had them sign a finance document, explaining that if the account was not paid in full 30 days from the DOS or 30 days after insurance paid their full amount, they would be subject to finance charges. Do you think you would get faster payment? Or just mad patients?

Money In, Money Out

We made an appointment for one of our patients that is deaf. Shortly after that, we received a call from an interpreter stating that he would be coming to the office with the patient, and we were to be paying his bill. He needed a billing address to send us his bill. Now we have a physician that is fluent in sign language. Do we have to put up with this? If we have to really pay an interpreter, can we pick out one that is a little nicer? Could we have billed for our physicians interpreting skills? Who would we have billed?

Wasted Saturday?

Our company called a mandatory staff meeting on a Saturday to discuss all office operating procedures, company policies, patient relations, expectations of employees, OSHA< HIPAA, etc... The company's expense was high for this, over time, food, etc... but we felt it was necessary in order to address some problems we were having. We all arrived back to work Monday morning and within 30 minutes we had numerous violations of the policies that we discussed on Saturday. I wonder just what does it take for people to care about our company, patients, fellow employees and themselves? Is it the age generation or were we that bad also?

Dictation DIctation DICTATION!

Earlier this week I noticed a growing backlog in dictation from a certain doctor, let's call him Dr. Laggard. Dr. Laggard has, in the past, been known for chronically submitting his dictation late. I talking going on a week after the patients were seen. This frustrates me to no end and puts the practice in jeopardy.

Tuesday before I went home I checked in with him to 'gently' push him to catch up.
Do I even have to tell you nothing happened during business hours on Wednesday?
Last night I again reminded him to get with it. Do you ever feel like a broken record? I feel like I've tried everything from asking nicely to begging him. I think if it doesn't happen today I'll sic Jean-Claude, my Betta, on him!

Why MOM Rants

I need a place to let it all hang out. While I still enjoy my career as a MOM, there are just some days where I drive home wondering if what just happened was real. This happens a lot during a hiring time or after a week of pharm reps coming after me. That is why I created MOM rants, to let it out. I'd like to invite other office managers to commiserate with me and to feel free to speak what's on your mind.

Jean-Claude

By the way, this is Jean-Claude, my Betta.

He may look sweet and innocent,

but trust me, he can bite!

Let the ranting begin

Hello blogging world.

Last week, I had to call security to haul off a sales rep. I decided I needed a place to share my rants. I hope you'll join me here and feel free to let off some steam. Perhaps we'll even come up with some solutions to all that we put up with in the medical office.

Your friendly Medical Office Manager,
Ms. MOM

D for Doctor in the Yellow Pages?

We advertise in the yellow pages of both of our local phone directories. Have you noticed how the phone book people come up with more categories for you to place an ad?

As surgeons, we have, general surgery, our multiple specialties, as well as plain old physician to choose from. There are so many choices that I usually have a hard time choosing. A few years ago I just stuck with general and physician.

The next year after we cut back on our categories, I noticed that our competitor did the same thing. Now the phone book company no longer officers the large list of categories.

Do you really think patients choose their surgeons by opening up the phone book?