1:53 p.m. - 24 July 2002
Sick. Yuck.
I’m sitting here, Monday evening, in front of the TV, laptop in my, um, lap, feeling like shit. This morning my throat seemed a little sore, and as the day has progressed, I’ve been producing more and more phlegm. Now my sinuses hurt and I’ve got a headache. And of course I can’t stay out of work because I just started training the new MSC.
So, yeah. Training. A little weird to be teaching someone twice my age (approximately; I have no idea how old she is and I don’t really want to know) how to do my job. And of course, my job isn’t easily explained. There are so many little things that have to be done every month, but I don’t have a list or anything. I probably should, but I don’t. Nor do I have a set schedule for getting everything done. I just generally do.
So today I talked about what I do, and some of the theory behind it, and showed her where everything important was, both in the office and around the hospital. At the end of the day, we did some filing. Woo. Pretty straightforward, except that our file folders have dividers and prongs on all four sides, and different things go on each section of the file. And it’s not immediately intuitive what goes where, particularly because more than one thing goes in each section, though they’re all the same kinds of things.
For example, the front left side is for licensure information: state licenses, DEA certificates (more properly, controlled substance certificates – they mean the practitioner can prescribe medication), and liability face sheets go there. The front right is for communication: letters to/from the physician, and cvs get put on that side. The back left is where privilege sheets and CME certificates go, with the privilege sheets always on top. And the back right is for appointment information; i.e., reappointment applications and letters stating that the practitioner’s request for appointment has been approved by the board.
This is not helped by the fact that there are quite a few liability companies, and of course, each one produces face sheets that look completely different from all of the others. Not to mention all the CME certificates look vastly different, as well, so that they’re not immediately obvious as such. And this doesn’t even begin to take the other parts of the job into account.
And Kathy is going out of town next week on vacation, so it will be just the two of us. With only one computer, I’m thinking that things could get a little hairy. We haven’t even discussed the folks who call on a regular and semi-regular basis and how Kathy likes her messages handled. Which calls get answered right away, which ones I try to handle for her, which ones can be blissfully ignored. It took me a long time to feel comfortable with all the aspects of the job and to feel that I could safely be left alone. We don’t have that luxury.
Kathy plans to take advantage of the 90-day probationary period (although it may be six months, we’re not sure) and if the new MSC isn’t a good fit, Kathy plans to let her go, no matter whose wife she is. At least, this is what Kathy says now. It may change.
I’m off to try to relieve some of the pressure in my head. Hopefully I’ll be better by tomorrow morning.
Okay, now it’s early Wednesday afternoon, and I’m back in the recliner, not feeling any better. I was drugged all of yesterday, and this morning I woke up and knew there wouldn’t be any point in going in. Talk about your sink or swim situations for the new person. I hated to do it, but I didn’t want to get her sick, either. So I’m here at home, with crappy television (I’m actually watching cheerleading right now because it’s kind of the best thing) on a gray, rainy, thundery day. Not very fun, particularly with the whole not-being-able-to-breathe thing.
Add to that the fact that the house is a disaster area, and I’m really feeling sick. We’ve got fresh veggies coming out of our ears, and we can’t eat them all before they start going bad. And stinking. And dripping. Yuck.
And right now, I think I’m going to go crawl back into bed for a while.
Addendum: Now I can't even watch TV because it's raining so hard the satellite signal went out. Grr.
