A Modest Proposal

[incandescens]

Sent round to my colleagues at work. Will make less sense to those who are not my work colleagues and clinical coders.


Given the constant movement in NHS Connecting for Health for better business practices, proactive improvement of customer handling, and ongoing engagement with self-educational behaviour in both staff and clients, I would like to suggest the following steps for improvement in Clinical Classification standards and helpdesk procedures.

1) Anyone who fails to send in casenotes more than three times running will be blackballed and refused answers to any more queries unless they apologise in a really grovelling way and send the entire team chocolates.

2) Anyone who sends in a query on the grounds that "I heard it on this course" but fails to provide further evidence, including failing to remember what course it was or when it happened or who was there, will be forced to attend three more courses on the same subject and then sit a test to make sure that they understand it now.

3) Anyone who bad-mouths the team gets a Government Healthcare Tsar's head in their bed. (Horses are too expensive, and we are sure the government will go through plenty of Healthcare Tsars, or whatever they choose to call them next year.)

4) Anyone who annotates the Manuals and then says that "we've always done it that way but I can't remember who started it and I think it was because of something you told us" will be made to write out 1000 times I MUST NOT SCRIBBLE BAD WORDS IN MY BOOKS.

5) Anyone who sends in a stupid query that has an obvious answer in the CCIM or Coding Clinic will go on a new Foundation Course. This goes double if they're a manager, accredited coder, or trainer.

6) Anyone who sends in a ridiculous "shopping list" will buy the entire team drinks to make up for it. Including the IC. Especially the IC.

7) Anyone who questions a presenter from the Classifications Team at a course they're giving and asks them to give a coding judgment on the spot ("I've got this example here...") will be made to answer five coding queries on the spot without any preparation or chance to check things.

8) Anyone who is still using OPCS-4.3 will be chased round the building with a big stick.

9) Anyone who is still using OPCS-4.2 will be chased round the building with a bigger stick.

10) Anyone who annoys us will shut up and go away. We are the Coding Gods and they are crawling insects.

While it may take some time to encourage the overall adoption of these processes, I feel that on the whole they will produce a vast improvement in the tone and nature of queries being addressed by the Classification Team, together with making their work much easier and allowing much more directed problem-solving and expansion.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Your work is praiseworthy work, necessary work, work that contributes to the health and well-being not only of Britons but of the British National Health system itself. ('British' advisedly because I don't know if Wales, Scotland and northern Ireland have their own systems.) But between doing your work and changing five poopy diapers in a row, I'd take the latter as being infinitely less aggravating.

[incandescens]

I do appreciate the thought. It's just that we sometimes get some right idiots asking for help.

(Actually, Scotland and Ireland and Wales do use the same basic coding systems as us, but they have some national variations in specific coding practices. Fairly minor ones, though. They send representatives to the English bimonthly coding review panel (which, thank God, I no longer have to take the minutes for) and it is all fairly polite.)

[archangelbeth]

I can find some good American sticks to send for chasing people 'round buildings with, if you want!

[incandescens]

I appreciate the thought but hate to think what the postage would be.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Anyone who annoys us will shut up and go away. We are the Coding Gods and they are crawling insects.

That was worth all the others. *laughter*

[incandescens]

Thank you! :)