Tina's homework.

Ahhh..to be in college again.

Now I truly understand what Barbara meant when she told me how she HATED people for thinking that she was stupid.

The statement is plain enough. It is well understood. However, when you meet ridiculously idiotic people, the thought of them dragging your integrity to their level of dopiness is godforsaken horrible.

It’s fecking offensive to the ninth power.

Just don’t take me for a dumb-assed fool - I hate it more than anything in the world. Getting shit under my fingernails when I changed Mikayla’s diaper left no traumatic effect on me. Only being regarded as stupid by these patients is slowly killing me. I wonder how on earth these people survive for all of these years and I could swear on my father’s grave their IQ is the same as their US shoe size.

Example #1:

A patient leaves the office after seeing the doctor. She returns 2 minutes later and wants to ask a question she had forgotten about. In most offices, no one tolerates this bullshit and will tell the patient to buzz off or get back on line. Because we have to screen for wackadoos (there are plenty of those and they sure as hell keep on comin’ back), we pry and ask her what was the forgotten question (oops, we’re violating HIPAA here). She claims there was something on the lab report she didn’t quite comprehend.

She runs in and asks for a nicotine patch. What? The doctor says. You don’t smoke.

She stammers a bit and fesses that it’s for her husband.

Fun fact: No Chinese male will EVER give up on his tobacco, even if his life depended on it. It may be free, but no Chinese male will part with his fags. And that’s that.

She’ll get a free prescription and attempt to stick these patches on the alleged sucker when he goes to sleep at night. This isn’t fricking birth control you twit.

Example #2:

$5 co-pay again? I paid you the last time. You’re not supposed to be collecting 5 bucks each time I come to visit.

Example #3:

What the? The other doctors only charge $1 for a referral. Why must you collect $5? What a hwucking rip-off. It’s only a goddamned referral.

Example #4:

Have you been seen by our doctor before?

Yes, I’ve come up here dozens of times.

I understand you’ve been in our office a few times, but have you been seen, as in examined, by our doctor before?

I know how the doctor looks like. He’s looked at me before.

So you’re the patient, right?

I guess so. I come up here with my relative.

Did you ever fill out a registration form?

Uh, no. I don’t know my name.

It turns out the asshole has been seen 6 times in the past 4 years and we’ve opened up 2 charts because he couldn’t get his name right. The doctor chewed out our asses for not “digging deep enough”.

Motherhwucker.

Example #5:

Patient comes in and tries to butter up Tinny by calling her “Gorgeous”. Recalling this woman on our infamous list of wackadoos, she pays her no mind. The patient spots Tinny’s Louis Vuitton messenger bag and excitedly tells her that she bought the same one. She later complains how the bag isn’t good for storing large items and goshdarnit, it was mighty expensive. She paid a hefty price - less than 100 bucks for it on Canal Street.

Tinny tries very hard not to giggle 'cause everybody knows Canal Street sells nothing but designer knockoffs.

O-kay…the real McCoy is around $800-$900 or so…

Example #6

Because of the new policy in effect, our patients could no longer utilize our building’s rest room for urine collection. Unfortunately, our patients are PIGS and literally TRASHED the bathrooms. Spills on the floor, cups left all over the room, and god only knows what else they’ve done.

So, if they want to have their blood drawn at the office, they are asked to collect their pee in the comfort of their own homes. We provide them with a labeled urine tube, cup, and specimen bag for storage. On their appointed date, they bring in the damn specimen and wait in line to get their blood drawn.

One day, this guy comes in and complains to us, “Why didn’t you give me the cover for cup? Don’t you know how HARD it was for me to hold this cup w/o spilling it on the street? And why'd you give this little container for?”

OMFG.

Example #7

In the past, we never collected co-payments for patients who come in to discuss their laboratory or diagnostic results. However, Rich had decided to modify the policy a bit as the demands for these people have grown tremendously absurd. Patients would take advantage of the ‘free’ policy and literally abuse it for their own benefit. So, if they came out of the office with a referral, script, or requisition form in their hands, they need to pay up.

To illustrate, specialists generally send reports to the PCP as an FYI after seeing the patient. So, our patients are slick enough to have Rich analyze their reports instead of returning to their respective specialists.

At the specialist’s office, there is no shitting or kidding around for freebies. They absolutely do not tolerate with this behavior and have no issues contacting local authorities if things get out of hand. There are no negotiations regarding payment and copayments are required for EACH visit. Plus, there are no walk-ins and the next appointed visit could take WEEKS.

They rudely demand how I should retrieve these reports from these specialists because “we’re your patients”. Go and kiss my ass. To top it off, they’d argue with me about our own policy for “free” report analysis. I was so disgusted with their behavior (over a mere $5) that I rightfully refuse to accommodate these people. Being the bearer of bad news, I would cheerfully tell them the report hasn’t been received as of yet and they would need to follow up with their specialists for review.

Of course, this does not sit well with them. You think I care? Hell fecking no.

In fact, there have been times where I’ve deliberately removed these reports from the charts and hid them. Rich would occasionally pop out of his office and inquire if there were any unfiled reports. All I do is shrug my shoulders.

A-hem.

Example #8

A few months ago, I somehow “offended” this patient when I asked her to pay an additional $5 for a previous visit we neglected to collect.

[Yeah, yeah, yeah…over five fucking dollars, my life has turned into a complete soap opera.]

Instead of paying up, she launched an endless tirade about our policy and the whole whatnot. I told her to forgetaboutit and called it a day. Dammit, the bitch wouldn’t let up.

Anyhoo, the same fool returns to my office a few more times before having another fallout with me. While training Vivian (our newest and youngest member), I was informing her when patients request to have their bloodwork done could potentially be disallowed by the insurance companies if they didn’t meet a specific time period. When I announced this fact to the retarded bitch, she sprang from her seat to launch yet another diatribe against me. She kept ranting over and over again about how the doctor requested her to return at these appointed dates and yadda, yadda, yadda. I mumbled how she could be responsible for the lab bill and warned her not to bring it back to my office for any resolution.

I was in no mood to deal with her retarded shit that Friday.

Unfortunately for me, this woman would not stop. She continued with her henpecking and at some point, I told her to shut up because enough was enough.

After she was done, I knew she was supposed to return to our office a week from this day. I made some mental notes that afternoon.

Come Friday the PITA returns (aka Pain In The Asshole), so I shot her one of my infamous Chinky narrowed-eye looks and rudely walked away from her. Seeing that Vivian was the only receptionist available, she had no choice but to surrender her insurance card to the little one.

I told Tinny about her ridiculous rant from the prior week and we were prepared to stage any theatrics just to mess with her.

Well, well, well. It just so happens that our little Viv couldn’t find PITA’s chart - it took her a lot longer than it need be. Given any other day, one or all of us would generally join in on the search to expedite the process. Instead, both Tinny and I looked at each other and stayed put in our respective places out in the front. I even called out to Vivian, “Sorry babe, me and Tinny aren’t gonna help you out. Take your time sweetie. You need to be able to find that chart.” Ahh, the wonders of training new staff.

Viv was getting flustered for being unable to find the chart. Tinny & I knew she was looking at the wrong pile, but we decided it was quite fun to torture both the newbie and the PITA.

PITA, wasn’t as stupid as she appeared to be. In fact, she knew Vivian was new and INSISTED that Tinny and I help her out. I snapped at her by saying there was no need to have more than one individual working on the task and how Vivian was capable of doing her job. Besides, PITA wasn’t ready to be seen. That cow needs to take a chill pill.

Seeing that I was unwilling to help, she walked over to Tinny and asked her to join the search party. Tinny immediately grabbed the phone and started ringing up bogus numbers to show how horribly preoccupied she was.

Another 10 minutes have gone by and Viv hasn’t found the chart. Heh.

In the meantime, I sent in a critically ill patient and a few minutes later, Rich pops his head out asking for additional reports. Between me and Tinny, we were hopping around looking for this guy’s bloodwork and X-rays. PITA walks over AGAIN and urges us to assist Vivian.

I barked back at her for "bothering" me and the urgency for us to address the medical needs of the patient is currently being seen by the doctor. One individual looking up her chart was ENOUGH.

She sits her fat ass back down on the chair and glares at me.

After another 10 minutes, Vivian reappears from the back office with the PITA’s chart. She was sniggering and gagging over the fact that she was looking at the incorrect pile of charts. Hey, thanks to my sheer madness, I color-coded all of the state family health plans to presumably expedite the sorting process. Yeah.

Anyhoo, PITA breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Viv reappear from limbo. While we pretended to act busy, PITA decides she’s gonna spit in my trash bin.

Okay, okay, okay. Before you vomit, let me give you the 411 regarding Chinese people and their expulsion with sputum -

In China, tissue is one heckuva commodity. A scarce one, no less. So, the reason why SARS spread like the wildfires of California is because people don’t fricking wash their hands or use tissue to blow their nose. Bad, bad hygiene.

As they teach in my daughter’s kindergarten school, recycling is all about reusing. So in China, don’t be surprised if you get a wad of newspaper or tatty old textbook at a public restroom used as toilet paper.

In all fairness, there are times when people have to spit…not that it’s socially acceptable, but only when it’s necessary. I’ve had people with their wisdom teeth yanked out, phlegm attacks, and you know, that bodily fluid sort of thing. It’s the sporadic spitting where peeps gotta clear their nasal passages that skeeves us all out.

Our darling PITA decides to spew into my trash and this time, I launch into this earsplitting tirade against her. Generally, I don’t usually yell at people for spitting unless it’s that time of the month. Besides, it’s no good to constantly get into a fight over petty crap with patients. Seriously, we’ve got better things to do.

After the next patient leaves the exam room, PITA rushes up to Rich and wants him to go over the results of her report. He looks at me and I retorted arrogantly in Cantonese (she speaks Fukienese, but I wanted her to feel left out in this conversation) that it wasn’t her turn and she needed to sit her ass down.

So the next one goes in. Hey, it’s not my fault she’s an hour early for her appointment.

Honestly, I thought the mayhem was over when her ass was in Rich’s office. All of the bickering and snappy remarks were making me hungry. Me hungry equals to me being cranky.

In all of this, Mikayla was also at the office since she had a little mishap at school and barfed all over herself [Mmmm Mmmm Good!]. This Friday was technically my day off, but I had Rich pick up Miki as the office is located right across the street from the school. My poor baby reeked of rancid puke, so mama had to bring in a change of clothes.

When I got to the office, I ended up having to stay longer than usual because of the mass of people congregating at the front desk. I prefer to hang out there until the swarm is properly contained.

So I opted to take my child out of the back office and snuggle up with her in the front with Tinny and Vivian. She wasn’t feeling well, so she allowed me to envelope her completely in my arms. While Miki was there, I was debating whether or not to take her to the pediatrician’s or just go home and sleep the afternoon off.

Well, lo and behold, PITA decided to break my quality time with Miki. The moment she stepped out of Rich’s office, another horde of people came in for the midday lunch rush (sometimes I feel like I work at fast food chain). Seeing both Tinny and Vivian were preoccupied, she wanted to schedule another appointment 3 months from now. Tinny instructed her to wait.

The stupid cow then bugs me to schedule an appointment. I gave her one of my “WTF” looks and told her to ask one of the other receptionists ‘cuz I was busy. I mean, by now, wouldn’t you have guessed who the hell I was? How many people are allowed to casually bring their children into the workplace w/o getting shit from their bosses?? HELLO!!!!??? I’ve got a kid in my arms!

But no. Stupid cow continues to badger me for an appointment, so in a commanding voice, “Hey Vivian, when you finish up with these patients, give her an appointment so she can leave the office and quit harassing me.”

Because she deliberately tried to avoid Vivian, I decided to turn the tables right back at her. You’re gonna get Vivian, like it or not.

After the cow left, I apologized to Vivian for treating her like a subordinate. Everyone chuckled over the entire incident.

Just so you know, any female wackadoo named “Mei Zhu” is on my shit list – heck, this one is the second Mei Zhu I’ve had to scream at. PITA is such an oxymoron and even my own mother can’t believe how stupid she is. In fact, my mom thinks I’ve fabricated this story just to make it exciting to tell.

As if.

Example #9

I had a fight with Mei Zhu #1 (cranky tightwad) back in April because she was stuffing words in my mouth. When she appeared in my office at noon, there was a dreaded 4.5 hour wait across the board. She insisted to be seen at 4PM since she had a business to run (like I give a shit) and couldn’t be away for too long (how the fuck you get Medicaid?). Being very CYA with words, I specifically said that it was a Monday and nothing was guaranteed because over 30 people registered as walk-ins in a single hour (No kidding).

Tinny took her cheesy $5 co-pay and the woman left. At 4PM, she returns insisting to be seen immediately. I had folks sitting in my office for over 4 hours without a single complaint and this one comes in as though she owned the place. I told her that it wasn’t her turn yet and she started yelling and screaming at me. She called me a nasty liar and incompetent at the job. I shouted right back about how she convinced herself in her own mind she was to be seen at 4PM and I told her up front I would never tell a patient w/o an appointment to come at a specific time. Because if I did, then it would clash with someone who did indeed have an actual appointment and a verbal brawl would ensue, like now.

Bitch assumed that speaking to me condescendingly would make me cry and beg for mercy. NOT.

Unfortunately, this was the one time where I welcomed those dumb-assed schmucks who thrive on having the last word in my office. Instead, I get the lot of nice and respectable folks advising her to stop fighting with me. Hell, they collectively decided to let this doggone bitch cut in front of them so she could get on with her business.

HELL NO. Not on my watch. I don’t condone bitching to cut the line and I wasn’t about to let her deface me. Never stuff words in my mouth. Ever.

She sits in the waiting area bickering about my horrendous conduct. I stood up from my seat and told her to shut the fuck up or I’d throw her ass out. Then she started screaming about how we took her co-payment and didn’t rendered services to her (we made out like a bandit, to be exact - for a whopping $5).

I took a $5 bill and threw it over the counter. Told the bitch to take the hwucking thing back.

Apparently, this action OFFENDED her.

I literally dragged the next patient into the exam room while she barged in to “reason” with Rich about my malicious attitude. Because Rich had no choice but to side with me (he hates any confrontation), he politely asked her to sit outside and wait.

Per mum, my attitude didn’t ignite the brawl, it was the manner in which I returned the money. To some Chinese people, tossing back money means you look down on them prejudicially – based on one’s social status.

Now this isn’t your typical day at the doctor’s office, right???

Well, the environment at work hardly changed much, people will continually shit on the receptionists, a whirlwind of paper will always need to be maintained, and stupidity will prevail on this planet.

We finally moved to an electronic platform for billing and medical records last month. Stuff has been seriously hopping. In a great way, of course.

Previously, we’ve lost a whopping load of $ on insurance claims thanks to unreliable and late billers, lack of follow-up, and just plain ol’ deficiency in the knowledge of medical billing. It’s not like I took a course in it nor was I ever trained on the subject matter. I basically learned this crap on my own.

And remember, thanks to my disorganization and lack of motivation, I would tackle issues only when I felt like it. I can honestly fess up to having many unmotivated days.

So, I’ve accomplished much since my “Sloppy” post on 11/11/06. I’ve resolved a majority of the tasks and/or moved certain issues into a new status. That way, the ball is no longer in my court. Ahhh…volleyball anyone?

I remember advising my fellow co-workers that certain issues were never meant to be resolved – instead, it would be a constant email volley of vernacular fits between the involved parties. In situations such as these, the best course of action is to simply maintain this tennis match and make sure you slam the tennis ball right back into your contender’s court. Always be prepared and keep the damn ball out of your court.

And when your boss asks you why you haven’t made any progress, it ain’t your fault…you’ve sent numerous of follow-up emails and have gotten no response. Don’t know what else you could do and you’ve also cc’ed the schmuck’s superior. Oh well…

Then the cats who reside in those upper echelons of the workplace will do the hissing and caterwauling. Your job is to simply be prepared for the tennis ball to return.

The smarter folks will understand this piece of advice…others, don’t. And you wonder why they’re still in the same job for the past 6 years.

Since I took over, we’ve employed two additional and competent part-time receptionists, renovated the office twice to optimize workflow and keep the assholes from barging straight into the exam room, upgraded numerous technological gadgets, improved workflow, righted all of the wrongs, whupped patients into shape, and completely shut down access to the doctor. And then some.

This is no easy feat and thanks to my work-life experience, I’ve taken this practice into a whole new level. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Undoubtedly, I brought all of these potential seedlings into fruition.

Of course, someone begs to differ. But I’m not going into that right now.

Of course, there’s definitely room for improvement. Because I was molded in the Fidelity way of thinking, anything and everything can be done better. Gimme another 6 months.

Basically, I do everything – from contracting, networking, credentialing, cleaning, billing, feng shui’ing, to plain ol’ receptionist work. The only thing I don’t do is examine patients and prescribe them Prozac. And hell, I proudly declare it to all Rich’s peers and Provider Relations Managers. They have no choice but to agree.

Where has the time gone? Where did the year go? And what have I personally accomplished for myself?

Forget it. I’m not gonna answer that one.

Thanks to Mikayla, I have THREE fish tanks to clean and maintain. It's no easy task.

February of this year, I was given a 1-gallon fish tank with 8 little fishies. Because of severe overcrowding and fierce hierarchichal behavior, there remains a dominant pair (Big Fat Meanie & Bossy are their names) with two little suicidal fishies (Bubbles & Pinky). The other 4 went to fishie heaven.

September of this year, I get another FIVE goldfish from the San Gennaro feast. A remarkable feat, Miki won two 3-inch comet goldfish (named after characters from Spongebob Squarepants [blearghh] - Rooney and Flounder) and one of them died 4 days later. Unfortunately those fishies are a diseased lot and it depresses the winner because they simply aren't made to last more than a week.

Sensing my daughter's distress over the loss of her new goldfish, I offered her an opportunity to win another partner for Rooney. Lo and behold, Miki came home with not one, not two, but THREE more goldfish. It wasn't because she had a great aim and managed to plunker those ping pong balls into those little fish bowls...it was because one of the winners felt sorry for Miki and gave her one of the five fish she had won. And then the vendor herself gave Miki a freebie because my baby's lower lip curled as she missed each shot. After purchase two $5 buckets, Miki finally scored.

So we came home with THREE more goldfish. They were called Fifi, Chum and Bucket. Fifi died the next day of fin rot and Bucket went kaput due to nitrate poisoning. Apparently, the overcrowding in the fish tank, disease, and the wastes excreted by the goldfish caused them to go kaput one by one. All of them were sick and required heavey dosages of meds to kill their nasty infections.

So I have two surviving goldfish in a separate tank, plump and vibrant. I have yet ANOTHER lot of baby Jellybeans that I was trying to breed this past summer. I originally had 28 and now I'm down to 9. Man, this is a true testament of Darwin's theory in the survival of the fittest.

No fricking wonder why I'm busy. It takes me 3 hours to clean the tanks each goddamned weekend when I could be blogging or emailing.

Things us parents do for our kids.

Got tendonitis this week, can't really type or surf the web.

Aye. Time for painkillers.

So sorry for the lack of updates, have been extremely preoccupied with stuff at work, the amount of homework Miki needs to finish each night, and the horrid mess at home. One would assume that I live in some kind of dump. No really, things are completely out of control and I think I need to revert to my former way of life.

The one I left behind in Fidelity.

Where I used to notate in my organizers, meticulously update all of my to-do lists, and don a walkman 24/7. I need to listen to RATKOS (of all the music I own, only RATKOS makes me work – don’t ask why). I need to adorn my corporate helmet along with the serious business voice where my friends and family can’t even recognize.

A few years ago, I rang up my brother at his work number and got his departmental voicemail. Fearing that he could get into trouble with personal calls, I left a professional sounding message that went, “Hi, this is Linda calling from National Financial Services and this message is for Steve Mah. Please give me a call back at 212-335-5213 at your earliest convenience. Thank you and have a nice day.”

Asshole returns my call 4 hours later yelling at me for not calling him. I told him that I left him a voicemail and he said, “that was YOU?!!!???”

Yeah, it was me.

I’m hopelessly disorganized now. Work gets done only when I’m motivated and I can honestly say that I ain’t motivated most of the time. All I want to do is clean my house thoroughly (which I have, but the mess never seems to be contained), do the laundry and get ‘stuff’ out of the way. Heck, I'm lucky if I tried to GROOM myself. My hair's really awful.

Stuff just keeps piling up. At the office, my main motto now is to accomplish one task per day. It’s better than nothing, but not really ideal. I should really get the crap outta the way and move on.

Furthermore, my sleeping habits are completely messed up. My mattress is too firm, I’ve morphed into a light sleeper and because I have so much ‘stuff’ that needs to get done, I can’t sleep. Yet, I don’t really try and get ‘stuff’ done when I do have the time. I’m too sleepy or engulfed in Days of Our Lives or reruns of Buffy to give care.

Am I bad or what?