No EMR can fix this

2 hours on the phone today. 45 minutes on the phone to various phone numbers for help with a claim to Maryland Medical Assistance. Same annoying MIDI muzak for every single wrongly connected call. Talked to one human who told me that my patient was a "Priority Partners" patient and transferred me to another number where I was on hold for 15 minutes. Finally talked to another human who told me someone would have to call me back. So I went onto the next rejected claim, this one from Mountain State Blue Cross Blue Shield. I decided to go online and try to find some answers using their website.... but they just had a phone number (their fancy name for it is Interactive Voice Response System). And they had listed a special number for providers. So I called it, and realized as the robot listed all the choices I could make using my telephone's numeric keypad that this was a number for patients, not providers. So I started hitting random keys on my phone while muttering invectices under my breath, which sometimes leads me to an operator, but that didn't work (and, in this case, it relieved some stress!). Back online to find another number.... under the contact link, there it is, a number for providers! After 10 minutes on hold, I'm told that everyone is too busy to talk to me; do I want to call back in half an hour, or have someone call me back after 4:00? Well, neither of those choices is exactly a dry martini, so I get off the phone and so now it's 10:50 a.m. and once again, I feel like I've gotten very little done. How do people manage this job every day and not pull all their hair out?! I know, I'll move on to something positive, something good.

I want to blog about our next big event, The Walk Across Maryland, which will kick off the 2009 Health Olympics! The Hancock News has an article about it this morning, but I don't believe they make their paper available online, so once again as I did with the Journal article, I will post it seperately as a jpg. Basically, the Walk Across Maryland is just that -- we found a stretch of Maryland that is just one mile across here in Hancock. Many of our local businesses get involved, and post themselves along the route with water stations, apples, and other healthy offerings. Washington County Hospital is making up our t-shirts this year. The Walk will take place on September 19 as part of Hancock's Canal-Apple Days Festival. It only takes about 30 minutes to complete and it's a lot of fun! We'll probably have a table at the Festival where people can sign up for the Health Olympics. The Health Olympics is a very simple program to help people get started, or maintain, a healthier lifestyle. For 2 months, they'll track their exercise and eating habits each day, and attempt to give up one unhealthy habit. We give you a calendar where you can mark your progress, we weigh you in and note your goals. At the end of the 2 months, you come back, we re-weigh you. In years past, we've done some type of drawing to reward those who have met their goals. Rankin's Fitness is one of our partners -- they always donate some awesome prizes such as free memberships at their wonderful gym. We're still in the process of getting everything wrapped up, so stay tuned for more details!