Venting folks... Pardon me while I get this off my chest.
The *&%# really hit the fan this morning and I can't seem to get it straightened up. One of our front office admins informed us that a report we were sending through hadn't been routed through the proper folks before the Director seeing it, and basically chewed us out for the omission. Problem is, we routed it according to guidelines that we were told to use, but it seems that the Director doesn't like those guidelines today and changed the route this was to take. And since we didn't read her mind, we didn't make the changes to our routing at all. So, like a good admin and after handling that problem, I ask for corrected guidelines on routing. Does she want all of these types of reports to go through this routing list or the old one? Is this a change just for this one? I have another report due in her office today and who should it be routed through? The response I get??? "I don't know" WHAT?
How am I to do my job if you, as one of the Director's admin team, don't give me guidance? She informed me that I needed to have my supervisor ask the Director directly. ummm, isn't routing and such in the hands of the admins? Shouldn't her admin, who is supposed to be the lead admin for the facility, be the one who asks and then lets the rest of us know how to handle this type of thing? Trust me, I understand that the front office has as hard a time reading her mind as the rest of us, but some guidance and instruction from them as admins might help the Director understand the need for some sort of routing guidance that is standard. (I'm good friends with one of the admins and therefore have some inside knowledge on what is and is not being done or addressed at that level, and this Director has little office knowledge and no one is trying to explain to her the difficulties she is causing by being wishy-washy with things like this.)
Then to add to everything, I'm told that I'm not suspensing things correctly. That I'm not giving enough time to get responses from necessary individuals, to type up our response, and route it appropriately because if I was, then they'd have these reports already. What?? I suspense stuff back to me at least a week before they are due to the front office, mainly because I know no-one will meet my deadline to them. Then I route it through her staff, and it gets held up time and time again on that route, before it reaches her office, and I meet the deadline 98% of the time. Most of the time I can show where it was discussions and changes made by folks who didn't know anything about it and really didn't need to be in the routing of the report that held it up. I can always show when I sent it out originally, the problems I had getting responses back, and the hold-ups in the routing. I have asked for help in enforcing suspenses to services, with no response. No one is held accountable except our office. So what am I supposed to do about this? I asked, and got a smart-alek response (as expected, but it was my friend, so I give her lee-way with that), but ultimately it came down to it being my problem and something I had to handle with my suspensing. I was told basically that the involved parties needed to know that these reports had to take priority over other things, unless something else was a higher priority. Of course, I have no control over nurses, doctors, techs, etc and how they prioritize anything, and our office doesn't really either since she won't back us up, so how can I do that? And since most of our reports are done by folks who see patients, and we are a hospital, it would appear to me that our patients would have to take priority over reports, which is what I pointed out to her (only the patients being a priority).
Sorry to drag this out, but I'm so frustrated I could scream. And to add to the stress, our phones on our other campus are out, as is anyone's Outlook who had their profile on that campus' server, which mine is, so I can't even contact folks that I need to in order to meet todays suspsense. Is it Friday yet??? Anyone want to meet me for Margaritas today at lunch? I'm thinking of having a liquid lunch.
CountriGal
Deskdemon Editorial Board Member 
