The Forgotten Merger

"The girl you spoke to must have forgotten about the merger."

Yup that was the funniest thing I heard all week at work! The situation was the Mandy had spoken with a patient who wanted to reach Intermountain Pain Specialists' billing. Mandy told them they had the wrong number. After the phone call she asked me what Dr. George's (the doc who merged with us) office name was and I told her Intermountain Pain Specialists. Then the patient called back again and spoke with Whitney, who said that hilarious line. I bust up laughing and couldn't stop.

Merger? Wait a minute, that's why it's been so crazy and we have all these new providers, patients, and billions of drug screens we are doing?! Who woulda thought?!

I love my co-workers and the funny things we say. I'm so glad Whitney said that, cause laughing is so much better than the crying I had done before from all the stress of work. On Wednesday, Mandy and I were the only MAs and it was the craziest day ever. I told Cassie today that it felt like our work/patients/etc. was a big ol bus, and Mandy and I were the 2 little bicycle wheels trying to support the whole bus. Laugh at me, but that's how it felt. Dr. Ockey today pulled me aside and was like, "Elly, it is going to get better." When I told him that I hoped it would, he then assured me that it was going to cause we are getting 3 new exam rooms (which will help with the room issue) and 2 new MAs (which will help lighten the load). I just wish it was all done now...But Dr. Ockey did tell me that I'm awesome. He had stopped his meeting with our office managers when he saw me running around (yes I literally run/sprint down the hallway in our office) so that they could help with the crazy rush we were experiencing. So I hate my job cause it stresses me out, but I love it too cause I do work with awesome people. So, now I just have to hang on until re-enforcements arrive and laugh about forgetting the merger.

Mergers are good right?

So, my life has been so crazy between class and work. And just when I was feeling like I could handle that, the merger happened.

I work at Utah Valley Pain Management in Orem. Our staff included one doctor, 2 PAs, 2 Nurse Practitioners, a psychologist, a physical therapist, a Physical therapy assistant, 4 medical assistants, 1 receptionist, a bill specialist, a authorization specialist, and our office manager. Within 2 weeks and this merger, we gained a second office manager, an MA (who was fired a week later), a new authorization specialist, another receptionist, 2 new PAs, and second psyschologist, with a second doctor coming soon. What does all this staff add up to? Crazyness!

I guess I should explain the merger. So there were 2 different pain management clinics in orem: ours, and Dr. George's office (Intermountain Pain Specialists). Well, Dr. George, due to health reasons, decided to retire and wanted his patients to all come to our clinic. So, we took on his 2 PAs (physician assistants) and some of his office staff, as well as all of his patients. Now, my clinic is part of a group of radiologists/doctors who work at IHC hospitals, Utah Valley Imaging, Intermountain Vein Center, and Interventional Radialogists. The COO of our group came and talked to us about this merger and was totally excited about the growth and good things this would be for the whole group. Well, he didn't seem to mention that we would be crazy and short staffed and busting at the seems even more then we were before.

So here we are, after week two of the merger, and it's crazy as ever. Dr. George's office did things a little differently (like paper charts! ugh what nightmares). So they are once again remodeling our office (which means changing physical therapy's side of the office and giving them less space to do things...poor guys). Plus we have had to train all the new staff, get the new PAs adjusted to our policies, done a billion urine drug screens, fired staff so we are even more short staffed, etc. Before the merger, a busy day would involve like 15 drug screens. Now we do like 30 a day, most of the time we are doing a bunch at the same time. We have to get vitals and drug screens on all of Dr. George's patients. Craziness. Most days I come home so frazzeled and worn out. Poor Brad. Since the merger, I have gotten 4.5 hours of overtime, and I'm definately not trying to get any! I just don't have enough time to finish everything in a day. The phone is always ringing and even more patients need to talk to MAs, get prescriptions, drug screens, etc. And guess what, we haven't gained any extra MAs (since the new MA from Dr. George's office was fired). Even the providers say we are way understaffed. For having doubled our patients, we should have doubled our office staff, and we haven't. Oh well, job security right?

So yea, the merger is good...good when you have no life you need to get back to and don't need sleep, or you can easily manage stress and feeling stretched way too thin. Monday I felt like someone had asked me to run a marathon faster than I ever have and then they shot me in the foot and told me to get going cause I was waisting time. Oh boy, at least its the weekend, and the new PAs are getting the hang of it all. Plus, Paul will be gone next week, so that's less providers to worry about. Happy day. I love my job, just not so much these past two weeks.