I will teach no more forever

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I work in the commercial insurance billing department at a major hospital. Sometimes we are asked to help the Medicaid or Medicare teams when they get backed up. Some resent, I don’t give but a damn either way. Work is work and we are supposed to be on the same team overall, right?

So some of us volunteer to help out on a project to help the Caid team. Simple, really, just go on the state’s website and check the current status of a bunch of claims. It’s easier to do this after 5pm since the majority of users have gone home and the site isn’t being taxed to the limits.

Being the most computer literate of the group, I learn the procedure and am in charge of teaching the others.

I did so on an individual basis requiring that each person write down the steps and verify that they understand.

Which was my second mistake. Even though their mouths said, “Yes, I understand”, their eyes were, saying, “Pie? I like pie.”

I have learned from experience to tell someone, “No, I’m sorry. I just don’t get it. You’ll have to get someone else.” There’s no shame in admitting you can’t do something no matter how much it hurts to do so.

Agreeing to teach the others was my first mistake so maybe I haven’t learned as much as I thought. The learning process continues.

So, 5pm rolls around and we start.

I don’t get past the first claim when the yells for help start. They aren’t even reading their own instructions. In two hours, I have done about 20 claims. Two of the others have done three each. I could have done about 100 if I didn’t have to stop every 3.1 seconds and help the others.

Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy helping others, but eventually, you have to stop beating the horse. It ain’t gonna get up.

I e-mailed my team leader and the office manager to let them know that, if they want, I can knock off the whole project in about 3-4 hours (there’s only 400 claims. I had expected much more).

I’ll end up being the a*hole if the offer is accepted because it would deprive the others of overtime, but I won’t get anything done if I have to continue at this rate.

I am not one who can pad out the time clock. I want to get extra pay as much as the next schmoe, but not this way. I want to get the job done and move on.

I’m really glad tomorrow’s Friday.

2

I can relate, Mr. Blue Sky. As you know, I too work in a hospital, and recently I was put on a comittee with another RT to review our Policies and Procedures Manual.

The plan was for the two of us to sit down together, bring the documents up on the PC, read them and see if they are in keeping with the procedures we do at our hospital. If they are not, we are then tasked to “flag” them and send the document via e-mail to the person responsible for “signing off” on the P&P in time for Joint Comission for The Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAHO).

Well after about 6 tries to meet with this person, I finally did the whole thing myself. It took me about 2 hours tops and I did it during “slow” time at work.

When questioned about why I did it solo, I simply explained that I had other work-related things on my agenda, and simply needed to expedite matters.

This means that other P&P stuff will get dumped on me, but what the hell? If I had waited on that person to finally meet with me, we’d be even more behind and guess who’d get the blame as the senior therapist in charge of the project?

A company I once worked for long ago had the following credo:

  1. We will do what we say we will do.
  2. We won’t commit to something we can’t do.
  3. Once we commit to it, we will do it!

That’s always worked for me. Not always true for others, though

Q

3

I don’t doubt the sincerity of my cow-orkers wanting to learn new things, but I’m afraid they are more interested in padding their paychecks. While I don’t have a problem with that in and of itself, I’m just not that kind of worker.