Tuesday Humor-Doctors Report

The medical office is unable to release her husbands test results due to confidentiality regulations. HIPAA went into effect 14 April.

They can't bill Medicare the first time if they don't know positively which patient. It's called fraud. The lab would never admit to it.

They would tell the lab to suck up the cost, Medicare is not going to pay them a cent.

Sorry Gunner, too many holes in this old joke now, I can't resist.

Robert

NOPE, medicare/medicaid uses fuzzy math. If you have ten patients records checked and two patient records are found faulty(this is literally the difference between the date "Aug. 10, 2003 and

08/10/2003"), you pay back 20 percent of the total income of ALL patient accounts. And it does not matter if the two patient accounts were for a total of $10, if ALL patients accounts total $10,000,000 your rear end will be passing a load of $2,000,000.

DAMHIKT,,,

$42,000,,, $&*_)@*& the rabid goat screwing bastards that work for medicare/medicaid. I hope they all choke on,,,

Sorry for venting here folks.

In case you think I'm using fuzzy math,

C

IT WAS A JOKE.

JEEZE

I thought it was hilarious

Yeah.. Lately when I go to the lab sometimes they ask what I'm in there for. I've been telling them it's patient confidentallity you'll have to ask my Doctor. *s

Doesn't do any good though. But, I like to toss it back at them now and then.

Regards,

Stan-

Now, how about something that isn't a joke? It was in the news about a week ago and happened in Canada (BC if I remember). It was a piece of mis-wired lab test equipment used in VD (to be PC, that is now STD) testing. Supposedly, only two pieces of test equipment worldwide were wired backwards to the results indicator. So, over a few months that this went undetected, the lab had 2917 people (out of 3000 tested) treated for VD while 83 people went home happy...

You'd think they would have noticed THAT trend sooner. This was reported on Yahoo! news about a week ago for those wanting to look up the article.

If you want to see some dumb/curious looks the next time you have lab work done, just ask when the equipment was PMed, the last reference date and the expiration date of the re-agent.

Here's another:

A woman, calling a local hospital, said, "Hello, I'd like to talk with the person who gives the information regarding your patients. I want to know if the patient is getting better, or doing as expected, or is getting worse."

The voice on the other end of the line said, "What is the patient's name and room number?"

She said, "She's Sarah Finkel, in Room 302."

He said, "Oh, yes. Mrs. Finkel is doing very well. In fact, she's had two full meals, her blood pressure is fine, her blood work just came back as normal, she's going to be taken off the heart monitor in a couple of hours and if she continues this improvement, Dr. Cohen is going to send her home Tuesday at twelve o'clock."

The woman said, "Thank God! That's wonderful! Oh! that's fantastic...that's wonderful news!"

The man on the phone said, "From your enthusiasm, I take it you must be a close family member or a very close friend!"

She said, "I'm Sarah Finkel in 302! Nobody here tells me s**** !!!!!!!"

Glenn

(links updated)

Y'know, the funniest/scariest part about this one is that, until just recently with the new "medical privacy" law that went into effect, a call like that was the best hope a patient had of getting a straight answer...