Did You Ever Wonder

deespoohbear · Feb 25, 2003

i think if these people don't have anything better to do in their time off work than to look at nursing bulletin boards and chat rooms and take notes, they seriously need to get a life. :rolleyes: i seriously doubt it is true though. you know how rumors like this get started. plus i would think out of 20,000 plus members on this board alone, it would be kind of hard to track down certain posters (unless maybe they have their picture as their avatar, list their place of employment and other identifiable information). not only do we have posters from the states there are also posters from europe, australia, new zealand, central & south america. i think finding a needle in a haystack would be easier. i know a couple of posters on here have stated that they were talked to by their supervisors about stuff they posted on here in regards to patient confindentiality...they were finked out by co-workers who knew what their user id's were....but i think those cases have been rare. it would be nice to hear from somebody in these regulatory agencies to comment on this.... :rolleyes:

kikumara, i have a question for you about one of your abbreviations. what does cmri stand for and what kind of agency are they? i don't ever recall seeing that one...thanks...

Kikumaru · Feb 25, 2003

Thankyou Dees for responding. CMRI is the Medicare overseer in California. It is short for California Medical Review Incorporated. They audit medical records for quality improvement and utilization review. Loved it when I did work for them.

deespoohbear · Feb 25, 2003

Oh, that is why I didn't recognize the abbreviation. Stuck here in the Hoosier state....not sure what they call our Medicare overseer here... :confused: I think auditing charts would give me a headache....

Nurse Ratched, RN · Feb 25, 2003

I hope the regulators ARE visiting here and taking notes. It would be nice for them to know (if only vicariously) what life is like in the trenches when administration *doesn't* have everyone fully staffed and the place looking pretty in anticipation of inspection :rolleyes: .

As for being identified, I haven't said anything here that I wouldn't say in a live setting. No one should operate under the illusion that we are totally anonymous.

Excellent question - I hope they're here and learning something USEFUL .

SmilingBluEyes · Feb 25, 2003

I Hope they are too, but don't hold much hope they care the plight of nurses in the trenches.

sjoe · Feb 25, 2003

"I think if these people don't have anything better to do in their time off work than to look at nursing bulletin boards and chat rooms and take notes, they seriously need to get a life."

If this is true, (and IMHO, this is just another urban legend) what makes you think they would be doing it on their own time?

But this is just one more reason to pay attention to advice we might be tempted to give to people writing posts asking for "what to do" medically.

Agnus · Feb 25, 2003

Originally posted by deespoohbear
I think if these people don't have anything better to do in their time off work than to look at nursing bulletin boards and chat rooms and take notes, they seriously need to get a life. ....

Well I guess you are right I need to get a life.:roll not that I am from one of these agencys but I have been known to hang around here on my time off way too much:D

Why would they hang around. Unless there is blantent confidentiality issues being breached. I do not see the problem in expressing an opinion, especially and anonymous opinion.

Frankly I have seen very little that could even come close to a confidentiality issue. Without mentioning names or names of hospitals, geo areas etc. it is pretty hard to pin down who a patient might be.

And even if you think it fits a certain patient perfectly. Well... sorry but contrary to popular belief there is very little in this world that is unique. There can easily be more than one partient in the same situation. I think that is one of the points of this board, there are a LOT of commonalities in nursing.

I agree we need to be VERYcareful how we present information so as not to breach confidentiality but other than that I don't think they can kill us for what we think. We all say things here that we are thinking that we might never say publicly, and might never do. Some things said are just words nothing more.

yes I have on rare occasions seen some things that might be a breach but they are rare.

Stargazer · Feb 25, 2003

Originally posted by Nurse Ratched
I hope the regulators ARE visiting here and taking notes. It would be nice for them to know (if only vicariously) what life is like in the trenches when administration *doesn't* have everyone fully staffed and the place looking pretty in anticipation of inspection

I completely agree! :cool:

Kikumaru · Feb 26, 2003

Have been appreciating all the input on this thread. Some comments were made about them doing it on their own time and that they probably won't care about the plight of nurses involved in patient care. When working as a nurse surveyor (auditor) for some of the managed Medi-Cal (medicaid in other states) health plans I did not feel comfortable being controlling. Some people saw me this way and some were confrontational. Approaches I would take were primarily as an educator in the regulatory process. I would go into providers offices (PCP's ) offices, audit them for quality issues (meeting criteria which DHS stipulated), then educate them on how to improve rather than cite them and "give them 30 days." This was the way I practiced, though. After doing some questioning of others in regulatory capacities I realized that not everyone working for regulatory agencies were nurses. They were also not administrators or business people; they were attorneys, law enforcement agents and paralegals. What makes me wonder is how objective would they be in realizing the plight of most nurses? Will continue to research.