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How many of you would agree to duties outside the scope of our practice i.e. menial tasks such as filing, confirming appt times, searching through old files?  Do I have any grounds to state that is not my job description?  I'm a team player, but I am feeling a bit disrespected in role. 

Please give me your input

practicing PA for 12 years

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Absolutely would not agree to the things you've listed. I have a hard & fast rule that my job description must specifically mimic that of my physician colleagues. If they're not doing the things you've listed, I'm sure as hell not doing it. I'm not above helping out my staff from time to time as I know what it was like being an MA before becoming a PA a few years ago, but that's really only me cleaning up after myself after sewing a lac or changing paper on an exam table when I walk past an empty room.

 

Hold your ground. You spent too long to train to get to where you are, especially so with 12 years of PA experience.

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Guest HanSolo

This sounds like the kind of thing an MA would do. I would say you are definitely not being properly utilized in your role. 

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Have I done it to help out - Yes, but informally after a crazy day to help office staff leave only slightly late on a Friday.

Would I ever allow it to be part of my job description or do it if administration asked me to as part of my job - absolutely not!

PAs who do these tasks on a regular basis are some of the highest paid secretaries in the world.

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2 hours ago, pgpac said:

How many of you would agree to duties outside the scope of our practice i.e. menial tasks such as filing, confirming appt times, searching through old files?  Do I have any grounds to state that is not my job description?  I'm a team player, but I am feeling a bit disrespected in role. 

Please give me your input

practicing PA for 12 years

Let me summarize my thoughts: f### no.  I'm a medical practitioner, not a clerk.  

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2 hours ago, pgpac said:

How many of you would agree to duties outside the scope of our practice i.e. menial tasks such as filing, confirming appt times, searching through old files?  Do I have any grounds to state that is not my job description?  I'm a team player, but I am feeling a bit disrespected in role. 

Please give me your input

practicing PA for 12 years

Nofuckingway.gif

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nope  

 

And explaining that you are something like 4-6 times as expensive as an MA usually makes the point

of that with one more patient seen in a day you can pay for the MA salary.......  

 

nope not ganno happen   

 

as well i don't even really offer help, when is the last time the MA helped you when you were swamped.... yeah never cause they are not providers... so we are all hired to do our jobs, just do your job, and nothing more or less.....

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Work in a busy ER.  Sometimes I will start my own IV's and and such when the nurses are legitimately busy, I do this when I am afraid a pt might slip through the cracks and there may be a delay in care...ie, I think pt has appy or may be septic....you get the point. 

I will sometimes turnover gurneys and get pt areas ready for the next patient and even sometimes load them. I only do this when the nurses are obviously sandbagging. They tend to get the point after a couple of times.

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if even asked to do that work then the job is #*&# and i would leave, it shows no respect for the provider, they make enough off of you, dont demoralize yourself for their end profit, them them hire a janitor/clerk/nurse ect.

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My first job I left in 5 months. The doc is notorious for making the PA a glorified MA. On the last day I sat down with my SP and outright told him that he would be better off hiring an extra MA to do the job I was doing. He actually appreciated the feedback. Didn’t learn though... word on the street he has had 3 new PAs since I left 3 years ago. I said what had to be said though.

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On 7/12/2018 at 1:56 PM, pgpac said:

How many of you would agree to duties outside the scope of our practice i.e. menial tasks such as filing, confirming appt times, searching through old files?  Do I have any grounds to state that is not my job description?  I'm a team player, but I am feeling a bit disrespected in role. 

Please give me your input

practicing PA for 12 years

Additionally, it makes no financial sense for a practice to do that. You should always have the lowest earning employee do the tasks that's within the scope of their skills. So surely, there is a lower paid staff member who can do filing. Would they ask a doctor to do the tasks they are asking you to do?  There are circumstances where we do things below our professional training, but in a routine fashioned. For example, if the flu strikes the practice and suddenly 80% of the staff are sick, sure, a team player will pitch in with the doctors to empty trash cans and vacuum the floor (I was the janitor in the practice, which I owned), but this makes no sense to do it as a scheduled activity.

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I have turned rooms and such many times when we were  busy and it helped with patient flow and particularly if the nurses were just underwater. That is just being a good team member.

My first job after I retired was a remote RHC. My administrator was trying to control costs and said to me "you know how to take your own vital signs don't you" meaning he was going to shorten my nurse coverage and have me room my own patients. I said "I do. I also know how to scrub a toilet but I'm not doing either of those things."

Big difference between being a team player and getting scut work dumped on you by someone who doesn't respect you.

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There's a difference between turning over your own rooms, doing vitals when busy, doing iv's, etc and confirming appointment times, running a credit card for a copay, and confirming insurance.

from a business perspective, there is only one thing that brings money in, and that is you. Everything else- the nurses, the electricity, the rent, even unused rooms- these are money going out.  So if a business has the only person who brings money in literally wasting time filing, then the business manager sucks.  If you can see a patient in that time, why aren't you?

Doesnt matter PA vs md vs np; doesn't matter 85 vs 100 % reimbursement.  Because if no one saw that patient, you ain't getting no money, honey. 

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