Mistakes

What are the consequences of mistakes in Ben’s office?

“Honey, I’m home!” Ben sang out as he stepped through the front door. His small son ran and tackled his knees, and he was relieved to see that his wife was smiling.

Ben swung Jonathan up onto his shoulder and hugged Carmen. “How’d things go at work today?” he asked her.

“You were right,” she said. “Once I talked honestly and respectfully with the girls about how much time there were spending on… umm… personal things…”

“By which you mean the super-cute delivery guy,” Ben cut in.

“Exactly,” Carmen laughed. “Anyway, they saw my point and I think it’ll be okay. It’s just hard to get a conversation like that started.”

Ben thought about his own staffing issues. High staff turnover, absenteeism and errors seemed to be a constant problem, and he didn’t feel that he had time to spare to deal with the issues — even if he’d had a good plan for approaching them.

Jonathan’s attempts to get down got Ben’s attention away from work, and he set the boy gently on the floor. Jonathan scampered off and Carmen said gently, “Are you worrying about work again?”

Ben agreed that he was. “Maybe it’s the upcoming changes in reporting regulations that are making me notice it more,” he said, “but I feel like we make a lot of mistakes.”

“Any mistakes in a medical office feel like a lot,” Carmen observed.

“Oh, it’s not mistakes in treatment. It’s things like incorrect diagnosis codes, forgetting to collect copayments, incomplete documentation, delayed payments — even overpayments.”

“Not things that affect the patients, then?” Carmen asked.

“Actually, that kind of mistake can affect the patients,” Ben admitted. “Whether it’s a billing issue that gets uncomfortable and the patient just doesn’t come back, or a feeling that things are falling through the cracks that makes a patient feel less confident about us, we can lose patients because of office problems.”

“Plus,” he went on, following his wife into the kitchen as she raced to turn off the oven timer, “Every hour I spend dealing with office SNAFUs is an hour that I’m not seeing patients.”

Carmen cocked her head, a steaming pan of baked sausage and eggplant in her hands. “I think it’s always easier to change the circumstances than to change people,” she said, setting the pan onto the table. She began to gather the ingredients for a salad.

Ben grabbed a tomato and began to slice it. “The circumstances are pretty settled,” he objected. “We have things we have to do, sometimes by law. There aren’t any points for originality when you’re talking about medical billing.”

“I get that, but there must be things that make it easier to make mistakes, or harder. Like lines in the parking lot make it easier to park a lot of cars than it would be if everyone just did their own thing.”

Jonathan raced in at that moment with a picture he had drawn, and Ben pushed thoughts of work from his mind, but Carmen’s words came back to him later. It seemed like lots of little mistakes added up to big problems. If his staff couldn’t change, how could he get past the problems?