week 6

This week, I volunteered again with the secretaries downstairs. I again filled in the template on the computer with new patient information. There weren't that many to do, so I spent some of the time just talking to the secretaries. They are really cool people. I was happy to get to talk to them. It's nice to interact with the same people each week. Sadly, they ran out of the forms this Friday so hopefully they'll have some more again next week. So this week was pretty slow, so not much to write :(

Week 5

This week, I volunteered downstairs with the secretaries downstairs. Again, I put in new patient information. It's pretty straight forward. There is a preset form on the computer that I fill in with the specific patients information. It was nice this week to interact with the secretaries. I got to talk to her and discuss all the different patients that come through, and discuss our university. The volunteer work itself was straight forward.

Week 4

This week, the volunteer work was pretty straight forward. I went back to entering new patient information into the system that they have. It's a pretty straight forward system, just fill in the blanks on the template with the information the paitents provided. Sometimes the most frustrating thing though was reading people's writing. But it was interesting to see the different people that come to the clinic, the demographic.

I was putting in the information of a Caucasin female and you need to put in race in one of the templates. And it was interesting to see that actually the computer would not let me put her race in as white rather it was forcing me to put hispanic. It was interesting considering the fact that people of all races can have difficult times in their life, and may need to come to the clinic. It was just suprising that I had to fight the computer so much to allow for me to put her correct race in.

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.

Week 2-- the front desk

This week volunteering was a little different. Instead of looking up patient information to try and figure out what happened to their blue sheet or their small co-payment page, this week I learned how to put new patient information into the system. It isn't too difficult, but it's interesting to see how the patient numbers work and how if the children have some sort of insurance, its noted and then the kids don't get a patient number. It's interesting that they really ensure that they providing medicine necessities for those who truly don't have insurance.

I was working at the front office when you enter the clinic, and while I was entering the information, I got to see the people who work at the clinic interact with patient and which each other. It was nice to see that they treat  patients with the same kindness that they treat each other.

Week 1

This past week I started my volunteering at the San Jose Clinic. I had the orientation on Monday and volunteered on Wednesday. On Wednesday I had the opportunity to work with the secretaries and organize patient files. Usually when a patient enters the clinic they are given a blue piece of paper, where the doctor or nurse or whoever they see will write on it and then the patient is supposed to give it back to the secretaries and pay a very small amount. A lot of the time, patients may walk out with the sheet without knowing they need to give it in, as it is a free clinic. As well, sometimes the nurses throw them out. So my job is to look up the patients that may have done this, and organize the information. Did the patient truly come in that day? What were they seen for? Is there an out standing balance? Just straight forward stuff like that. But being that I don't want to be a doctor, I thought the best way to help the clinic would be to help with the paper work there.

A weird week

This week wasn't exactly the most productive week in reference to volunteering. The orientation was supposed to be yesterday, Saturday. However, being that it was the holiest day of my religion and thus I was unable to attend the orientation. Thus I haven't started volunteering yet.

HOWEVER, I made an appointment last week - as soon as I found out the orientation was on Saturday- with the volunteer coordinator at San Jose to have a private orientation tomorrow. So tomorrow- Monday September 20- I will be going for orientation at the San Jose Clinic.

When I spoke with the coordinator at the clinic last week, we discussed what I would like to volunteer in, and she said I might have the opportunity to work with patient files. That's honestly what I really wanted! Because I don't really want to deal with patients par ce, but I would love to learn how the clinics work from the inside.

I am super excited for the orientation and to start volunteering :)