Week 3- Last week

This is a little late, as this past week has been horribly hectic. I volunteered this past Wednesday- October 6th- again at the San Jose Clinic. This time I went back to my original volunteer assignment, looking up dates when patients visited to determine if they did pay for their appointment.

When a patient comes in, and sees a doctor, they are given a blue sheet which a doctor will fill out and allow for the receptionists to figure out how much the patients is required to co-pay. A lot of the time, the patients will actually walk out clinic without giving the receptionist the paper. The patient doesn't have to pay at that exact time, but the receptionist still needs the blue paper with the fees and everything to determine what the amount on the account should be.

So when a patient walks out with the form, the data is not entered in the computer, it is considered to be a "lost ballot". And so, now the clinic must look for the"lost ballots" and determine if people did hand in their blue form and it was not entered correctly- a duplicate- or if the forms truly taken with the patient and nothing was entered.

To figure this out I have to look up the patient number, check the specific date listed- this is determined by the appointment that was made. And then I need to look up the patient's account and determine if it is a duplicate or there really was no account information entered.