Resumes, Interviews and Technology Debacles

As I approach the end of my pregnancy we have reached the point in time to hire someone to be the Patient Care Coordinator at the office.  I will continue a lot of my responsibilities from home, however the Patient Care Coordinator will be at the office full time to do everything I can't do from home.  

All of my life I have dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom.  In any other job I wouldn't have had a second thought about leaving.  This time it's different, very different.  Kevin and I have given so much to this business to make it a success.  It has truly been one of our biggest challenges and greatest accomplishments.  As I look back over the past year and half I can't believe how much we've done.  In the moment I didn't realize it, but now I can't believe it.  In a way, this practice was like our first born and we've been together every step of the way, every single day.  The thought of not being there seems impossible to imagine.  At the same time though, the thought of not being with Claire is even more difficult to imagine.  I know that I would always feel this way, no matter when we decided to have children.  So please don't misunderstand, I am so excited everything is happening the way that it is!  I think what I will miss most ( and of course I am crying as I type this...pregnancy hormones) is seeing and hearing Kevin interact with his patients at work.  I truly can't express how much I fall in love with him again and again everyday.  He is so passionate about what he does and cares so much for everyone that he treats.  On difficult days (where everything "behind the scenes" is going wrong with software, credit card swiping, denied claims, etc. etc. etc) I see him put all of his exhaustions and frustrations on hold to give 110% to each and every patient.  I can hear him making them laugh and having a wonderful experience.  Sometimes as they leave the door, I turn and see him and I can see the exhaustion in his eyes and I can feel his need for a break, but there is usually not one.  He turns around and does it again and again and again all day long.  Doing what he does takes so much mental concentration to fully understand each patient's case, physical work and emotional commitment to make sure each and every patient has a great experience.  I see all sides of everything and I can not put into words how much I love Kevin for being the man that he is.  No matter what, he can put it all aside and dedicate himself to each and every patient that enters the office.  Seeing this makes me so proud of him.  I never knew how much this job would require of him, and I couldn't be more proud of him for rising to occasion and being the best he can be.  I am really going to miss seeing that and hearing that.  I am also going to miss interacting with all the patients.  I have really grown to love them!  I love making sure they all have a great experience at the front and that everything is always taken care of for them so that they don't have any problems.  Between the two of us, we finally have it down!  We also have an amazing massage therapist who does an amazing job.  It feels so good to know everything is in place.  Which is also why it is so hard to let go and trust someone else to be the face and voice of the office.  We've all been to places with poor customer service before, and I don't ever want anyone to feel that they experienced that with us.  With Kevin treating patients all day and our massage therapist working with her clients, the Patient Care Coordinator is on her own!  We have to know and trust her to take care of everyone and everything.

Wow- I didn't know all of that was going to come out!  I was just going to give an update about the applicants!  I am glad it did though, because I never want to forget how proud I am of Kevin at work and how much I love seeing him there everyday.  So- back on track now...we posted the position last Thursday.  Since then my inbox has been inundated with resume after resume after resume.  We have way over 100 resumes at this point.  

It has truly  been a monumental task to try and sort through all of them and determine which applicants are best fit for the position.  We have been up all hours of the night reading through these and trying to get though them all.  

In the beginning I was losing sleep over trying to figure out how we could ever find the time to properly interview the best candidates with a full schedule at work and a million "behind the scenes" problems going on with software, new billing programs, billing hold-ups etc.

Finally after talking to one of Kevin's friends that he graduated with we have a plan to find the right employee and I am really excited about it!

We are having a group interview at the office tomorrow!  

From the group interview we will select a certain number of applicants for individual interviews.

From the individual interviews we will then select a certain number of applicants for a working interview.  

In the working interview they will come into the office and we will get to see their interaction with patients and their ability to perform the job tasks.  

This should make it very clear who is best for the job!

I am really looking forward to this and I am able to sleep better too!  

I pray everyday that God has the right person for this job who will be with us longterm and commit themselves to caring for the patients as much as we already do.

The "behind the scenes" problems I have referred to are all happening at once...of course!

We got new billing software and as a result we have had to change all the operating systems on the computers which led to the credit card swiper no longer working, us trying to learning new programs, etc, etc. etc.

Kevin is great at figuring all this stuff out- but let me tell you; after 3 hours on the phone with merchant services trouble shooting why the credit card scanner doesn't work I think he feels like this...

In the midst of everything else, since our billing software is finally up and running to bill out to insurance we have hundreds of claims to send out.  It has taken months longer than anticipated for this to become fully operational.  Therefore trying to submit so many claims at one time is almost insane, but it must be done.  Of course, each time we try to create a batch to send out, there are literally 100 "hold-ups" or problems because of the software interface not transferring data correctly.  This leads to hours on the phone with technical support to resolve the hold-ups.  This pretty much occurs again and again.  BUT- once these claims are submitted and all the hold-ups are cleared, life should be good!

So- that is our week in a nutshell!  We are excited and eager to find the right person for the job and hopeful that the computer problems will be ending soon and all the claims will go out just fine, and it if we're really lucky the insurance companies will approve the claims so we can finally get paid!!!