Admitting Diagnosis

My all time favorite has to be "My Liver Is Killing Me"

Okay, I used to be an Admitting clerk, and I'll tell on myself. I was doing admission paperwork on someone being admitted for "Acute Pancreatitis." It was super busy, and I was doing three things at once, and got myself confused. The patient had Medicare, and the secondary commercial insurance "The Pyramid Life Ins. Co." I guess in my rush, trying to answer phones and such, I got mixed up, and the paperwork went to the floor with diagnosis: "Pyramid Life" and secondary insurance "Acute Pancreatitis" Needless to say, the nurses on the floor sent the paperwork back to me with a note saying to check my diagnosis!

On the same general topic, a friend of mine works in transcription, and the docs rarely read what the transcriptionists write, they just sign and take their word for it. She got caught though one day when the doc (she was working for cardio/pulmonary at the time) came to her with tears in his eyes from reading her transcription, and asked her how the h*ll she thought a patient eneded up with a "genital heart defect!" Apparently she typed faster than her brain, and since genital is a real word, spell-check didn't catch it!

what in the heck was it supposed to be??? LOL, in defense of myself (when I was one) and other admitting clerks, many admitting clerks are not mandated to take medical terminology (which IMHO they should be), therefore we don't necessarily always know when we're making mistakes. Not to mention that in my experience, the unit clerks and NURSES who fill out the admission forms we get our info from often don't spell things correctly. We have an LPN who does clerking, and she cannot for the life of her spell PNEUMONIA, PSYCHOSIS, SCHIZOPHRENIA or PYELONEPHRITIS correctly. Sorry guys, I'm not trying to be a stick in the mud, I think it's great to tell the stories of the funny charting errors and admission diagnosis mispellings. Just wanted to make sure you guys know it's not always simply ignorance that causes it!

looks like 'periorbital cellulitis'?

LOL, yeah, I can see that! Must not have been written down for the admitting clerk?? very cute!

All time favourite - walklessness for investigation! And I can't even blame the much-maligned clerks: the resident wrote it in the notes!

This is true. A cardiologist at our hospital years ago put this as the cause of death on a little old lady. JP FROG.....just plain f#*##** ran out of gas. Of course he got in trouble for that but as a young R.N. I never forgot it!

When my best friend's dad (now a seasoned trauma surgeon) was doing his internship in the ER, a guy came in with a carrot in a delicate place. He (supposedly) charted it as rectal carrotosis.

LOL!