Re: A scary but true story

[Guest guest]

Ken,

Sick of hearing from you? Please. Keep those WSJ articles coming. Do you subscribe to the online version or do you get what you are showing us for free?

Mark Dwyer, MHA, PT

mdwyer1@...

Re: A scary but true story

It's all about the economy. Things are going well, customer service sucks. Things get a little tighter, everyone wakes up and get smore serious.

Guy

A scary but true story

Date: Thursday, April 08, 1999 5:30 PM

To My Colleagues: I thought that the group would be interested in hearing my story of woe

(notice that I said 'interested', not 'amused'). One of my Managers

relayed an incident which involved a probationary OT employee. This OT

neglected to treat an Acute inpatient for three consecutive days. He did,

however, remember to document and bill for services rendered. When he was

confronted with this information, he acknowledged that it was true and

attributed his oversight to " human error " . But wait, it gets better!

Needless to say he was terminated. At his conference to inform him of his

termination, and the reason for it, he stated the following. " Well, I know

I will have no problem sleeping tonight because I did the best that I

could. " Further he stated, " The reason that this happened is that you guys

are working us too hard. " Mind you, he had an active caseload of 8-9

patients per day.

I don't tell you this story to depress you or to hammer OTs, because it

easily could have been a PT, SLP, or Assistant. Unfortunately, this is a

problem that falls into the category of the " Shadow " practice that Barrett

Dorko has most eloquently described in a previous post.

Lane has commented that " it looks like this stuff (fraud and abuse)

is getting pretty intense " . , I agree wholeheartedly with your

comments. Rehab is by no means immune from the Fraud and Abuse

initiatives, in fact we are a major target. I have heard many people

comment that we are spending too much time focusing on the negative and not

on solutions to our problems. We have to face the fact that some of the

solution is surgical debridement of these types of " practioners " .

Confucius said: " The longest journey begins with but a single step " . He

was right but the first " step " is to see where we are, and know how we got

there, so we don't get lost on the journey. This story is one of the

reasons that we are where we are.

Ken Mailly, PT

Professional Affairs Representative

aptanj

President

Mailly Consulting Inc./RPA

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[Guest guest]

Ken,

I would enjoy seeing your list. Thanks for your input.

Kay

KDD3800@...

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[Guest guest]

Mark:

Thanks for the positive feedback. I do subscribe to the WSJ interactive edition which costs me $75 per year. It has a feature called " Personal Journal " which notifies me of articles related to my areas of interest and allows me to download these articles. I have found it to be an incredibly rich resource for information which I consult twice a day.

There are a number of other valuable resources which are free on the Net. I've already forwarded info on Milliman and Roberston website. If you would like, I would also post the other sites which I regularly check out (Warning: It's a long list!)

Ken Mailly, PT

PAR

aptanj

President

Mailly Consulting Inc./RPA

Re: A scary but true story

It's all about the economy. Things are going well, customer service sucks. Things get a little tighter, everyone wakes up and get smore serious.

Guy

A scary but true story

Date: Thursday, April 08, 1999 5:30 PM

To My Colleagues: I thought that the group would be interested in hearing my story of woe

(notice that I said 'interested', not 'amused'). One of my Managers

relayed an incident which involved a probationary OT employee. This OT

neglected to treat an Acute inpatient for three consecutive days. He did,

however, remember to document and bill for services rendered. When he was

confronted with this information, he acknowledged that it was true and

attributed his oversight to " human error " . But wait, it gets better!

Needless to say he was terminated. At his conference to inform him of his

termination, and the reason for it, he stated the following. " Well, I know

I will have no problem sleeping tonight because I did the best that I

could. " Further he stated, " The reason that this happened is that you guys

are working us too hard. " Mind you, he had an active caseload of 8-9

patients per day.

I don't tell you this story to depress you or to hammer OTs, because it

easily could have been a PT, SLP, or Assistant. Unfortunately, this is a

problem that falls into the category of the " Shadow " practice that Barrett

Dorko has most eloquently described in a previous post.

Lane has commented that " it looks like this stuff (fraud and abuse)

is getting pretty intense " . , I agree wholeheartedly with your

comments. Rehab is by no means immune from the Fraud and Abuse

initiatives, in fact we are a major target. I have heard many people

comment that we are spending too much time focusing on the negative and not

on solutions to our problems. We have to face the fact that some of the

solution is surgical debridement of these types of " practioners " .

Confucius said: " The longest journey begins with but a single step " . He

was right but the first " step " is to see where we are, and know how we got

there, so we don't get lost on the journey. This story is one of the

reasons that we are where we are.

Ken Mailly, PT

Professional Affairs Representative

aptanj

President

Mailly Consulting Inc./RPA

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Guest guest]

Maybe you can get to make a section on his web page dedicated to

weblinks that have interest. Then we could just have one site to follow and

choose from different sites based on different therapists monitoring the list

of sites, and alerting of hot subjects. Maybe each of us could be

responsible to watch a site and report to the list???

Steve Marcum PT

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Guest guest]

for you Steve - anything. Let me know what you want.

At 11:14 PM 4/13/99 , you wrote:

Maybe you can get to make a section

on his web page dedicated to

weblinks that have interest. Then we could just have one site to

follow and

choose from different sites based on different therapists monitoring the

list

of sites, and alerting of hot subjects. Maybe each of us could be

responsible to watch a site and report to the list???

Steve Marcum PT

R. Kovacek, MSA, PT

Email Pkovacek@...

313 884-8920

Visit

<www.PTManager.com>

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE !

[Guest guest]

This makes no sense since only amendments to the Constitution have to be

ratified and there is a time limit. Another urban legend, I suppose.

J. Kapusta, J.D. LL.M.

The Murer Group

tkapusta@...

http://www.murer.com

> Re: A scary but true story

>

>Dear all,

>My son sent me this from college.

>

>Gotta love legislators.

>

>

>Seems like they took their time on this one. Did you know this? Ohio

>was

>the only state to ratifify for an almost 200 year period.

>

>Article [XXVII.]

>

>No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and

>Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of

>Representatives

>shall have intervened.

>

>Proposal and Ratification

>

>This amendment, being the second of twelve articles proposed by the

>First

>Congress on Sept. 25, 1789, was declared by the Archivist of the United

>States on May 18, 1992, to have been ratified by the

>legislatures of 40 of the 50 States.

>

>This amendment was ratified by the following States: land, December

>19, 1789; North Carolina, December 22, 1789; South Carolina, January

>19,

>1790; Delaware, January 28, 1790; Vermont,

>November 3, 1791; Virginia, December 15, 1791; Ohio, May 6, 1873;

>Wyoming,

>March 6, 1978; Maine, April 27, 1983; Colorado, April 22, 1984; South

>Dakota, February 21, 1985; New Hampshire,

>March 7, 1985; Arizona, April 3, 1985; Tennessee, May 23, 1985;

>Oklahoma,

>July 10, 1985; New Mexico, February 14, 1986; Indiana, February 24,

>1986;

>Utah, February 25, 1986; Arkansas, March 6,

>1987; Montana, March 17, 1987; Connecticut, May 13, 1987; Wisconsin,

>July

>15, 1987; Georgia, February 2, 1988; West Virginia, March 10, 1988;

>Louisiana, July 7, 1988; Iowa, February 9, 1989;

>Idaho, March 23, 1989; Nevada, April 26, 1989; Alaska, May 6, 1989;

>Oregon, May 19, 1989; Minnesota, May 22, 1989; Texas, May 25, 1989;

>Kansas, April 5, 1990; Florida, May 31, 1990; North

>Dakota, March 25, 1991; Alabama, May 5, 1992; Missouri, May 5, 1992;

>Michigan, May 7, 1992; New Jersey, May 7, 1992.

>

>Ratification was completed on May 7, 1992.

>

>The amendment was subsequently ratified by Illinois on May 12, 1992.

>

>Certification of Validity

>

>Publication of the certifying statement of the Archivist of the United

>States that the amendment had become valid was made on May 18, 1992,

>F.R.

>Doc. 92 0911951, 57 F.R. 21187.

>

>

>

>------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

[Guest guest]

Ken,

I think most of us would be interested in your long list of sites you check out. If you don't mind, how about posting them for us?

Mark Dwyer, MHA, PT

mdwyer1@...

Re: A scary but true story

It's all about the economy. Things are going well, customer service sucks. Things get a little tighter, everyone wakes up and get smore serious.

Guy

A scary but true story

Date: Thursday, April 08, 1999 5:30 PM

To My Colleagues: I thought that the group would be interested in hearing my story of woe

(notice that I said 'interested', not 'amused'). One of my Managers

relayed an incident which involved a probationary OT employee. This OT

neglected to treat an Acute inpatient for three consecutive days. He did,

however, remember to document and bill for services rendered. When he was

confronted with this information, he acknowledged that it was true and

attributed his oversight to " human error " . But wait, it gets better!

Needless to say he was terminated. At his conference to inform him of his

termination, and the reason for it, he stated the following. " Well, I know

I will have no problem sleeping tonight because I did the best that I

could. " Further he stated, " The reason that this happened is that you guys

are working us too hard. " Mind you, he had an active caseload of 8-9

patients per day.

I don't tell you this story to depress you or to hammer OTs, because it

easily could have been a PT, SLP, or Assistant. Unfortunately, this is a

problem that falls into the category of the " Shadow " practice that Barrett

Dorko has most eloquently described in a previous post.

Lane has commented that " it looks like this stuff (fraud and abuse)

is getting pretty intense " . , I agree wholeheartedly with your

comments. Rehab is by no means immune from the Fraud and Abuse

initiatives, in fact we are a major target. I have heard many people

comment that we are spending too much time focusing on the negative and not

on solutions to our problems. We have to face the fact that some of the

solution is surgical debridement of these types of " practioners " .

Confucius said: " The longest journey begins with but a single step " . He

was right but the first " step " is to see where we are, and know how we got

there, so we don't get lost on the journey. This story is one of the

reasons that we are where we are.

Ken Mailly, PT

Professional Affairs Representative

aptanj

President

Mailly Consulting Inc./RPA

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Guest guest]

<<

This makes no sense since only amendments to the Constitution have to be

ratified and there is a time limit. Another urban legend, I suppose.

>>

Only to more " modern day " amendments have " expiration/lapse "

dates. This has not always been the case.

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