I began the day today by being sent to Narnia by my brilliant phone. There was traffic on my way so I thought it would be a good idea to try a different route, but ended up nowhere near where I wanted to be and completely unsure of where I was. Luckily, I had left early enough and wasn’t late.
I started off the day sort of “debriefing” the meeting from yesterday. There were a lot of numbers and figures and medical terminology that were all being fired off at once, which made it a bit hard to understand. After having gained a better understanding of it, I then was sent to one of the account reps to look at the ways in which payment claims are processed. It was cool to see how much work is put in for what most people would likely think is a seemingly simple task.
I did a few other things throughout the day, but my favorite had to be going to all the different locations to pick up the charge tickets. This may sound boring, but we went to a number of different surgery centers and hospitals, and it was very interesting to get to see what each of the different locations do on a daily basis. At one of the locations, we also had to be in the pre-op and post-op areas, which I originally thought would be mundane but actually proved quite fascinating. I had thought that this little “field trip” would be a waste of time, but I actually quite enjoyed meeting a number of the physicians and office staff at all of the different places. In addition, getting to actually go back where the patients were held wasn’t something I thought I would do, but it was intriguing nonetheless.
One of the more humorous events of the day was when we were at the location in which the office manager and I were back in the pre-op and post-op areas. One of the things we had to do was pick up patient records in addition to picking up the charge tickets. At this location, the patient records were actually kept in the “Operating Suite,” where all of the operating rooms are housed. When we reached the door to the suite, she very quickly pressed the door button, reached her arm through the door as far as she could without actually walking in, then yanked her arm back out and shut the door. She laughed, somewhat embarrassed, saying that it always makes her a bit uncomfortable to have to pick those sheets up without wearing any kind of sterile clothing. She told me that she has had dreams in the past where she was sucked into the suite through a vortex or tripped and fell right into someone’s procedure. Though her dreams were a bit far-fetched and comical, I understood her point perfectly. Literally right on the other side of the door, the operation suite began and there was an operating room probably no more than 20 feet away, which was a bit daunting.
This has been a fantastic week so far, and I am looking forward to bringing Week 1 to a close!
