Surgery scheduling problems

[Creflo]

So I've been active duty for just under one year, and due to hospital renovations, my specialty started doing surgery at a local surgery center a few months ago. The civilian department clinic manager had asked that I complete the scheduling paperwork (much more administrative tasks than I would normally expect, includes more than just scheduling worksheets) then hand off to my corpsman for further processing. After the handoff, things sometimes weren't getting done. Each time a patient's surgery was not scheduled, I emailed the clinic manager to inform of the problem. I then would modify the paperwork with a new surgery date and start the process over again, causing the patient to have to wait longer and re-plan their schedules for surgery. This happened about 3 times over a couple of months. Then when it happened the fourth time, I copied my department head on the email to the clinic manager, explaining how often this has been happening. I never heard back from the department head, and was reassured by the clinic manager that it would improve/be OK. I asked the clinic manager for a summary of responsibilities for who is responsible for what steps in scheduling, but never received this. It seems that the manager's goal is to push off as much responsibility for booking/scheduling off on either myself or an HN corpsman. Before the remodel we had nurses to handle most of the scheduling, and they still do for the specialties that still operate at the naval hospital, but they don't do this for the surgery center cases. When I told the clinic manager that I am spending a great deal of time on administrative scheduling/paperwork for this, the response was that I could take more admin time and see less patients. So I am looking for advice on whether to just learn the scheduling process myself and handle it all personally, or push back to the clinic manager with the probability that my patients will continue to be the ones to suffer the consequences.

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[j4pac]

1) Endless renovation to accommodate Medical Home...the stupidest thing ever pondered.
2) More and more work taken off of the nurses and dumped onto the provider.
3) Clinic managers solely focused on numbers and not actual patient care/patient safety.

You have defined the malignancy of military medicine quite nicely. We had a couple providers, both which were excellent, who pushed back...only to be shunned and exiled to the depths of the hospital. I have pushed back...successfully, but fortunately I am not apart of an MTF and had the support of my CO. There is honestly not much that you can do other than hope for change, stay engaged with your other providers at your clinic, and pick your battles wisely.

 

[jabreal00]

If you are an 03 or even 04 just ask for lube to minimize the posterior trauma you must endure. You will get minimal help to try to circumvent these administrative boondoggles. The best advice I was given by one of my mentors while in training is that in the military one must grease the wheels themselves to get anything done.