Staff Meetings

Staff meeting today with the "front" office (where insurance, billing, coding, and appointments are handled) and back office (where patients are actually seen, labs are drawn, and charting takes place).  What a difference of opinion.  The front office sees the flow from their point of view.  The back office sees the flow from their point of view.  Since different things are handled in both the front and the back never the twain shall meet.  For example:  We actually close our office down from noon to 1:30 so that we can have some time to decompress and regroup for the afternoon.  Some people see this as a huge inconvenience for the patients.  Some people see this as self preservation.  There is no middle ground.  When we close the office for lunch, we also turn off the phones and calls are routed thru the Answering Service to the practitioner on call.  This is disruptive if the practitioner has run over to the hospital to see a patient and is trying to get back in time for afternoon office.  We have been in business for 10 years.  I'm not sure why these things have become an issue now, but they have.  There is a huge difference of opinion about whether we are to be constantly available, or whether we have the right to a bit of down time in the middle of the day.  Interesting times, these.