About 5 months ago I adopted a dog from a rescue group. He’s a Pomeranian/American Eskimo mix. And what a handful! So, I asked the vet to recommend a trainer. She gave me several names and I hired one. Sammy, that’s the dog, and I have now been in training for 4 months. Honestly, it is mostly me in training. Sammy appears to be much smarter than I am!

Over and over Laura, my trainer, tells me, you have to be consistent in what you tell him and how you do it. And you have to be persistent in giving the command and making sure he obeys it. Do not ever give a command and then not follow through. These are tough lessons for a softie like me. But we are making progress.

I think the same holds true for AHDI and AHDI-West. It’s hard work to be consistent when not everyone agrees on everything. But don’t we all agree on the basics: We want to have jobs in this evolving healthcare documentation world. We want to continue to produce or edit healthcare documents that accurately reflect what transpired. We want to do this in a timely manner. We want to continue to advocate on behalf of the patient and the patient’s family so that what is in those exceptionally important documents is accurate and communicates clearly and consistently the information the healthcare provider deemed important.

Is that happening now? In some places, yes. But as our economy has taken a dive and everyone is cutting costs, one of the “obvious” places to cut is proofreading, quality assurance and, yes, even asking the MLS to spend less time researching terms and just “get the work out the door”. Does that ultimately serve the patient’s best interest? Or the healthcare providers who are trying to take care of them? Or even, ultimately, the facility that has adopted this approach? I don’t think so. Sooner or later, the buck will stop and the lawsuits will start. Probably there are some already underway.

So what? So, now is the time for us to be persistent in our message that quality counts, that patients have a right to an accurate record and to tell the nation that in many cases that is not happening because no one is proofreading the data that is input into the record….because proofreading costs time and time is money. Now is the time for us to be persistent in our efforts to share our intimate knowledge of this documentation process with our legislative representatives, those who participate in the regulatory process, and with the public. Now is the time to speak up and speak out – on the forums for major newspapers, on the blogs of major news organizations, everyplace and anyplace you can make your voice heard.

AHDI-West has committed to send representatives to AHDI’s Advocacy Summit again this year to participate in this critical process. We continue to be consistent and persistent on behalf of our members.