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I am a lawyer, and if this was a lawyer's story, this would be my advice for the firm. First, they need to hire more lawyers. This guy is way too busy and will

I am a lawyer, and if this was a lawyer's story, this would be my advice for the firm. First, they need to hire more lawyers. This guy is way too busy and will make a mistake. Second, he needs a receptionist, secretary, and paralegal to support him. It is wasteful to pay him a doctor's salary to answer phones. Third, they need to streamline their record keeping so he doesn't spend so much time filling out paperwork.

themantalope 9y ago
>It is wasteful to pay him a doctor's salary to answer phones. This is something I don't understand. I'm a medical student, and the amount of time I've seen wasted watching older physicians type notes is staggering. Just have them dictate the notes and hire a secretary. Perhaps for legal/liability reasons doctors need to write their own notes but it's just such a waste of time, and we pay a lot for it.
- paulcole 9y ago
  >we pay a lot for it. Do we really though? I'm assuming a doctor is a salaried position so the more busy work they get the more hours they work? Doesn't this mean their time becomes less valuable?
  - themantalope 9y ago
    It really depends. Some are completely salaried positions. Some physicians are completely private so what they earn is directly tied to how much they work. Even those who are salaried often have some kind of compensation or bonus for extra work. And even if they are salaried, having physicians type notes is not making the best use of their training and time.
pmiller2 9y ago
What's the medical equivalent of a paralegal? A good nurse?
- Herodotus38 9y ago
  They are called scribes (or medical scribes if you want to google it and not get hits about ancient Sumer). It is a relatively new position, largely populated by people considering and applying for medical school.
- ars 9y ago
  Nurse practitioner. A tremendous amount of stuff that normally only doctors do can be done by a nurse practitioner, and since it's much easier to train them, (because they don't need as much schooling) there are far more of them. Basically give them the "easy" stuff and reserve the harder stuff for the Dr. Or have a Dr. consulting for a team of nurse practitioners and they go to him with questions and summary.
dikdik 9y ago
Most medical operations have an army of people supporting physicians. I used to work at a medical lab and there were transcriptionists, billing dept, a dept. for quality assurance of every report a doctor wrote, customer service, etc. Hospitals have all of that plus nurses (RNs, CNAs, etc.), physician assistants, and probably many others. Part of the problem is how much paperwork/procedures/diagnostic reporting is legally mandated to be done by doctors. The other part is...money. Businesses want to/need to squeeze as much money out of the doctors and that requires seeing as many patients as possible.
falsedan 9y ago
> It is wasteful to pay him a doctor's salary to answer phones Are you referring to: > In the mean time, I field 12 phone calls from ED, GP and other units. … I get called four more times between midnight and 6am. These are clinical calls: the other units need information about previous treatment, or clarification about current treatment, or updated instructions due to a change in conditions. E.g. > Ring, ring > Hello, this is the Levi residence, Dr. Levi speaking > Hello Dr, patient XXX's vitals have changed/is reporting discomfort, do you want to change treatment? > Yes, administer X ccs of Drugaline and call back if their situation doesn't improve in 2 hours > OK, thank you Dr

themantalope 9y ago

>It is wasteful to pay him a doctor's salary to answer phones. This is something I don't understand. I'm a medical student, and the amount of time I've seen wasted watching older physicians type notes is staggering. Just have them dictate the notes and hire a secretary. Perhaps for legal/liability reasons doctors need to write their own notes but it's just such a waste of time, and we pay a lot for it.

paulcole 9y ago
>we pay a lot for it. Do we really though? I'm assuming a doctor is a salaried position so the more busy work they get the more hours they work? Doesn't this mean their time becomes less valuable?
- themantalope 9y ago
  It really depends. Some are completely salaried positions. Some physicians are completely private so what they earn is directly tied to how much they work. Even those who are salaried often have some kind of compensation or bonus for extra work. And even if they are salaried, having physicians type notes is not making the best use of their training and time.

pmiller2 9y ago

What's the medical equivalent of a paralegal? A good nurse?

Herodotus38 9y ago
They are called scribes (or medical scribes if you want to google it and not get hits about ancient Sumer). It is a relatively new position, largely populated by people considering and applying for medical school.
ars 9y ago
Nurse practitioner. A tremendous amount of stuff that normally only doctors do can be done by a nurse practitioner, and since it's much easier to train them, (because they don't need as much schooling) there are far more of them. Basically give them the "easy" stuff and reserve the harder stuff for the Dr. Or have a Dr. consulting for a team of nurse practitioners and they go to him with questions and summary.

dikdik 9y ago

Most medical operations have an army of people supporting physicians. I used to work at a medical lab and there were transcriptionists, billing dept, a dept. for quality assurance of every report a doctor wrote, customer service, etc. Hospitals have all of that plus nurses (RNs, CNAs, etc.), physician assistants, and probably many others. Part of the problem is how much paperwork/procedures/diagnostic reporting is legally mandated to be done by doctors. The other part is...money. Businesses want to/need to squeeze as much money out of the doctors and that requires seeing as many patients as possible.

falsedan 9y ago

> It is wasteful to pay him a doctor's salary to answer phones Are you referring to: > In the mean time, I field 12 phone calls from ED, GP and other units. … I get called four more times between midnight and 6am. These are clinical calls: the other units need information about previous treatment, or clarification about current treatment, or updated instructions due to a change in conditions. E.g. > Ring, ring > Hello, this is the Levi residence, Dr. Levi speaking > Hello Dr, patient XXX's vitals have changed/is reporting discomfort, do you want to change treatment? > Yes, administer X ccs of Drugaline and call back if their situation doesn't improve in 2 hours > OK, thank you Dr