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Discussion

Stuck in a bad situation

Hello all! I'm in a difficult situation at work at the moment and need an outside perspective. I work for a small clinic and recently the other provider left and now I am still relatively new at the specialty (I am purposely being vague but it is a kind of niche specialty) and basically by myself.

The supervising physician is in a different state and comes in one day per month. My boss is working from home and suddenly very concerned about finances so has decided I need to see twice the number of patients I was seeing before. I am being triple booked all day and being basically forced to provide poor care and ignore my patients when they message me and when I complain I am basically told to suck it up.

I am months behind on paperwork and weeks behind on messages and orders and documentation and every day I show up I get more behind and it is panic inducing but they just keep overloading me anyways. We are billing for 15 hours worth of visits in a 9 hour day. (Which means I rush through the visits and then have a mountain of work and stay till 9pm every night and come in at 530am every morning).

I have finally accepted I just have to give my notice even if it means shutting down the clinic but I still have to give a 2 month notice per my contract and it feels like it keeps getting worse and they keep adding more time slots for double and triple booking and who knows how much worse it could be in 2 months?

Is there a way to at least get them to limit it somewhat in the interim? Every day I feel like I am going to end up having a panic attack just by going into work at this point and I am so embarrassed about the poor care that I am giving/ worried about getting a bad reputation as a provider.

They do not seem to even care about my opinion on the topic. And apparently they don't care about staying open either. I feel powerless. Thanks for any feedback you can give!

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    • Experts

    Get out ASAP!!! This situation is setting you up for disaster. What is the penalty for not giving two months notice? Geez thats ridiculous! I would normally provide a long notice as well but this situation literally puts your license on the line. I would consult an employment lawyer in your state. Best wishes on finding a new great job.

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    I don't know about practitioners, but as a regular RN in my state when you are over worked like this you can submit a 'Safe Harbor' to your manager. Basically stating that you feel you are working in unsafe conditions that make it increasingly likely that you will make a grave error. That you are officially notifying them that you feel that current expectations and conditions are unsafe and that if something happens you have record that you have stated your concerns and what you feel like you could safely do to your management and they did noting to relieve your situation. Thus you were doing everything you possibly could to provide care for the patients without abandoning your position.

    Then I would turn in my two month notice with written expectations on how you plan to wrap up your time with them. Like I would say. For the remainder of my 8 weeks you can double book me on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Mondays and Fridays I will be ensuring that all the services I have already provided are completely documented in case your business is audited. Thank you.

    And then do that. If they triple book you make the staff go tell the patient that was triple booked that the office made an error and that you do not have time to see them. Yeah, it's going to piss people off, but you are quitting, so they can cry you a river.

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    Read your contract carefully, but if it's a standard 30, 60, 90 day contract, you are pretty much stuck working like a dog until your last day. Just do your best and document appropriately. The last thing you want is a doc chasing after you for breaking a contract. Threats of suing can be made, but as long as you're following your contract to the T until your last day, you just have to suck it up. I wish you luck.

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    • Experts

    Wanted to circle back to the original poster - what did you decide to do? Hope you are at peace now.

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