Thanks for nothing, doctor!

[angelgirl]

I'm in a skilled nursing facility. We do physical therapy after surgery, etc. The patient is ready to go home and the insurance covers them until Tues. I'm in charge of discharge planning so I go over the details and call the doctor the Monday of the week prior. No response. I call Tues. no response. Wednesday I send an aide out to the doctors office with list of orders, scripts the patient needs and requests for equipment to go home. Thursday I get them back unsigned, no scripts, and a note saying it's okay for patient to go on Tues!!!!

I can't send your note to the pharmacy or the DME company! Cue cycle of calling doctor again and again. He always does this and it screws up the discharge, which falls on me. If I don't order the equipment 48 hours in advance, it doesn't show up on time because the insurance supplier comes from [city 100+ miles away] and they have a standard schedule for delivery.

Meanwhile, the insurance rep wants to know whats going on because the stuff isn't ordered, the patient and family want to know why things aren't in place and Doc isn't calling back. I gave him more than a weeks notice, what more can I do?

[Gerrinson]

I gave him more than a weeks notice, what more can I do?

Document it, is my advice.

Any chance you can contact this doctor by email in the future? A nice written paper trail to cover yourself in case he tries to pawn off the responsibility for his screw up.

[scruff]

Find his boss?

Find your boss/finance dude and explain this disorganised Dr is delaying discharge which incurs a waste of time/expense for your team and delays getting another patient into the hospital and associated funding?

Next time tell the aide not to leave the Drs office until he signs x and provides z scripts? (I've certainly stood in people's offices quietly with a professional smile until they've cracked and signed what I needed, to get rid of me.)

[Seshat]

Next time tell the aide not to leave the Drs office until he signs x and provides z scripts? (I've certainly stood in people's offices quietly with a professional smile until they've cracked and signed what I needed, to get rid of me.)

If the doctor is on the same physical campus as you, do this yourself.

Your goal is to become 'that annoying discharge nurse who will physically stand in my office and make me do my job, and be too damn polite to give me an excuse to make her leave'. So that he knows it's easier to do it right the first time.

[angelgirl]

makes me crazy

Yeah, I'm definitely documenting everytime I try to reach him or what we're asking for.

I spoke with the insurance rep this week about what's been going on and she knows he does this on a regular basis at several facilities. It's just frustrating because the most we're allowed to say to a patient or family is 'we're still waiting to hear back from the doctor' and they always blame our facility and staff for everything.

His office is located across the city from ours and we're not always able to have someone wait. What I need is someone I can assign just to him, to follow him around until he does his job.

His office manager is nice, but she says he always comes in an hour or more late to see patients who have been waiting and when they try to get him to move faster he gets frustrated and shuts down. I'm not sure this is the job for him.