A Little Story

Author: Cally

Nov 21

Once upon a time there was an administrative savant known as Cally. She could run an office like a finely tuned machine. She enjoyed the challenge and predictability of her work.

Then arrived the monster, a horrible entity known as a PPO which had been fiendishly designed to separate poor Cally from her sanity.

Finally, Cally admitted defeat: the monster could not be tamed nor slain. So she planned her escape and all was going well for her future freedom.

Then, on her last day, arrived the mystery package. It wasn’t really a mystery as far as the contents were concerned: she knew by feel the package had applications. The mystery was, how badly would the applications be screwed up?

So with the tender of the monster near at hand, brave Cally opened the package and determined the three applications inside were indeed very badly done, incomplete and unsigned.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Cally said to the tender. “Look at these things! If I hadn’t already given notice, this would have put me right over the edge.”

“Oh, I know,” the tender said sympathetically.

“No, really,” she replied. “I mean it would have put me right over, fire axes, stuff burning, body count, not a good time!”

And so Cally expressed her relief to be free of the monster’s horrific influence, and now plans to live happily ever after and never again work in health care for any amount of money.

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    • The Beginning of the End

    Author: Cally

    Nov 1

    I have been working as a temp at a hospital for too damn long.

    Grumble!

    Never in my professional life have I been a temp at the same client for five years. It’s unheard-of. It’s stupid, for starters. Add to that my whopping 71 cent raise during that time, and the fact that I have been expected to manage 300+ doctors, 120+ groups, and a dozen health plans that merge, buy, sell each other, and at random “lose” applications and terminate doctors for no reason, and it’s a nightmare of slave labor. But really the worst part has been that there is no boss. The person overseeing the work I do had it dumped on him in addition to his regular job, more than 15 years ago, with the directive to keep the “loss center on life support until [they] figure something out.”

    I have repeatedly told him that this is madness, and they either need to get some one in charge to take care of the insanity, or let it die the death it is seeking. But no one listens. “Job security,” he tells me. I wonder if the slaves heard the same about picking tobacco.

    I’ve suspected since talk began about building the replacement hospital that one of the changes would be that my position in the department would be phased out. So as they talked about the future in the new location, I knew I wasn’t going to be part of that picture, and I was okay with that: I don’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life.

    But then last week I heard a rumor about the bus routes being replanned, and this week found out for certain that the bus I take to work won’t be running as of November 24. The closest other route leaves me almost a mile from the office, on a street with a bridge and no sidewalks.

    So yesterday he’s giving me a pep talk about “embracing” the chaos that is my job, “stepping up” and taking charge of the department, and then tells me that the largest payor, the only plan that really makes any money for the hospital and keeps this mess going, is losing membership in the area and will likely be suspending business.

    Every time I opened my mouth to tell him the buses had taken the option off my hands, he got more peppy.

    But when I got home, I realized that the anxiety was gone. I realized, I’m FREE!

    Next week I get to tell my company and my clients that they need to get a replacement ASAP, and I will train that person to beat the dead horse, and then I never have to worry about that mess again. None of the problems are my problems anymore!

    It doesn’t matter yet that I’ll need a new job, that I’m losing my sole source of income in xmess shopping season, that it’s nothing less than cruel to dump this mess on some one else. Right now it’s only the relief of being liberated.

    Relief and the hangover from celebrating last night. It’s all good.

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    • On a Personal Note: Blargh

    Author: Cally

    Sep 6

    Today was one of those days at work that definitely call for a “TGIF.” Maybe a “WTF” and a “DIAF” too.

    (Acronyms)

    TGIF: “Thank God It’s Friday”
    WTF: “What The F!ck”
    DIAF: Die In A Fire

    I have a simple job I like very much: coordinate enrollment of physicians in health plans. Mostly I create and track paper, a comfortable endeavor for someone like me who probably has OCD (but hesitates to cop to it because it would interfere with my dedication to being lazy). The problem with my lovely job is there are two faces of health plans: HMOs and PPOs. The HMO side is a breeze. The PPO side is nothing less than a nightmare.

    PPO Nightmare

    For starters, there is no director in charge of the PPO as there is for the HMO. That got dumped “temporarily” on a guy who is already overworked about 12 years ago. So the day-to-day stuff falls to me (which now, after five years, is fine, although at first it was scary as hell). Only that guy won’t just let me handle it. He waits – lurks even – until the last possible minute, then second-guesses, pointlessly badgers, and nit-picks every little thing.

    Four years ago, the president of the PPO Medical Advisory Board (the group of doctors that approves new physicians for membership in the PPO) died. He has yet to be replaced. He was the guy who signed the contracts, so I have four years of contracts, unsigned, waiting for either his replacement or the end of civilization, cluttering up my workspace.

    The health plans keep buying each other, merging, splitting – and in all that, they lose our doctors. Just *poof* – gone. So I have to resubmit applications years later, and meanwhile their claims get rejected and they don’t get paid for the work they’ve done, and their office managers call me – not the health plans – screaming or in tears or both to fix it.

    And the doctors themselves do all sorts of cute footwork – going independent, then joining a different group, then going solo again, all without mentioning to us – and their claims get rejected and there is screaming and tears … or they move their offices and don’t mention it, and claims get rejected, and … you get the idea.

    So all week I worked on getting an update ready to send out to the health plans. A few new applications, a couple of resubmissions, a change of address, and some terminations. It took longer to do than it should because (1) I am having a hell of a time adjusting to the medication I’m on and (2) all of the applications had expired licenses and I had to wait until I got updated copies from the office managers.

    The “temporary” director signs the cover letters for these updates. I had printed them out Thursday afternoon and left them for him to sign. He signed them all, then when I went in this morning to get them, he asks why a particular doctor isn’t listed in the summary of changes. Because of the medication I couldn’t remember off-hand and had to go back to my desk to check the database; meanwhile he’s talking at me about “he’s on staff, he was approved by the Board, why aren’t we sending out his application?”

    Finally I get words in edgewise: “Because his license is expired and I haven’t gotten the new one.”

    AND THEN he has the GALL to ask me, “Well, did you call them?”

    The only reason I didn’t quit right then was because two things tangled on my tongue: “No, dumbass, I figured I’d just throw his application away and pretend I knew nothing about it forevermore,” and “You know what? YOU call them, I quit.”

    The PPO doesn’t pay me a cent for the work I do, and easily 85% of my workday is filled with PPO crap. I’m done. Monday I’m talking to the HMO director (the HMO is the side that actually pays the temp agency to have me there) and let her know that either the PPO has to (1) get a director, (2) demand accountability from the health plans if not the doctors and (3) start paying me, or I have to no longer do PPO work there. Otherwise I have to quit. I can’t handle that level of stress at work with everything else I am trying to manage; I’ll be damned if I do it for another week for free.

    Tune in tomorrow when I should be less cranky and getting to some overdue posts on August’s Top Droppers, great blogs I found through EC, and my paranormal adventure.

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