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Saturday, July 16, 2011

Creative Lying

"I did all my treatments an hour late, " I said, "Yet I'm going to chart them a half hour before I did them. That way I don't have to come up with an excuse why they were late."

I said this out lout in the RT Cave. Moments later I heard, "Hi, Rick"

"Oh, Hi boss," I said. "I hope you didn't hear what I just said."

"I heard all of it," he said.

That was the end of it.

Yet it's the truth. We can't just chart treatments when we do them and then chart something like, "Treatment late because RT busy in ER." That's a no no. That would never hold up in a court of law.

I've been lectured about giving late treatments enough to know it's better just to lie. It's called creative lying. I don't want to. If it were up to me I'd just chart the truth. Yet our bosses force us to lie.

They force us because to them it's more important that we dot all the i's and cross all the t's than that we gave the correct medicine and did something legitimate to help a patient.

It's not so much about patient care anymore than it is about making a buck. Charting makes bucks. Actually saving a life just saves a life. That's not how I see it. That's not the ideal health care system. Yet that's how the powers that do see it.

I don't even think my boss sees it that way. Yet his hand is forced by the powers above his head, and those powers are forced by chains maneuvered by the Federal Government.
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6 comments:

The Respiratory Cliff said...

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Michael said...

How about having 3, 4, 5 patient nebs "cooking" at the same time?!?! Don't say you've never done this before. It requires a little creative ballet with the med scanner, but it can be done. Is it the right way to do things? Looks good on the MAR.

Anonymous said...

Do you mean we can not do more than one patient at a time? Well Lordy be...

Rick Frea said...

Those are all things you have to do in a world full of doctors who love Albuterol as much as Santa loves cookies.

Anonymous said...

The premise of your creative lying scenario is preposterous! If you do a miss a Tx because of a code or ER or whatever reason, you SHOULD chart it for the exact time you gave it, and document the reason it was late - if you LIE and chart it when it was due, you ARE committing FRAUD and can lose your RCP license IF you are caught. Not to mention possible criminal charges as well.

rick fread said...

I agree with you. Much of what we do in the hospital is fraud. Think about all the times a doctor diagnoses a patient with asthma just so the PFT would be paid for. Or think of all the times a physician has to order three breathing treatments just so the patient meets criteria for admission in order so that the hospital gets reimbursed. It's not the RTs fault, nor the nurses fault, nor the doctors fault, and definitely not the hospital's fault. It's those idiots sitting in leather chairs, people who have no clue about healthcare, who are creating all the regulations that are to blame.