Day 6: Downe Hospital and Dancing

My third day at Downe Hospital was just as great as all the other days! I didn’t get to do any new duties in Outpatient Reception, but I’m getting better at the tasks. It’s funny how quickly I’ve picked up on their system, but I know I wouldn’t have any idea what I was doing if I didn’t have a little healthcare experience. There was one thing that I had the opportunity to experience that was different from the other days. Today, I was able to go upstairs and speak with Joanne who handles the legal payments.

Anything that involves a solicitor (like a lawyer in the US) goes to Joanne. Joanne is responsible to for looking into the computer to confirm that the patient was actually seen. Then she mails the patient’s medical notes to the solicitor after receiving £13.59 for making copies. A solicitor sends a letter because there was a car accident, injury caused by another party, etc. I asked Joanne why a patient would file a claim with a solicitor since healthcare is free (it’s not really free because it’s deducted from wages, but the patient would have paid the taxes regardless of an accident). Apparently, people file claims because they are rewarded money for their injuries. In the US, we file claims to cover things like medical bills. Since there are no medical bills, the patient get money in their pocket. Sometimes an injury as simple as whiplash could result in an award of £2000-£3000. I thought this was outrageous.

Additionally, I got to learn about the hospital’s private pay patients. I didn’t realize it, but some patients choose to purchase health insurance so they can bypass the waiting list. I found this quite interesting and didn’t realize that it was an option. All the patients need to do to schedule an appointment is mail in a copy of their insurance coverage, fill out a form, and then the appointment is scheduled. When the hospital has a private pay patient, the patient is charged for the room, transport, and service provided. This is how the US bills for things. The thing I found most interesting is the reimbursement. In the US, a patient has an operation or goes to the doctor and then the doctor or hospital bills the insurance company. It is the job of the healthcare institution to make sure the insurance pays the bill. If the insurance does not pay the bill, the healthcare institution may spend months arguing with the insurance company before payment is received. Sometimes, insurance companies simply do not pay the bill. When this is the case, either the service is written off or the patient is billed. In the UK, the patient is billed for the entire procedure. It is then the job of the patient to submit the claim to the insurance. I asked Joanne about this because I thought that patients wouldn’t pay their bills because several patients in the US don’t pay their bills even after the claim has gone to insurance. Joanne said that is it never a problem and they always are paid promptly. I attribute this to the fact that those purchasing private pay insurance can obviously afford the coverage and therefore they can afford to foot the bill until the insurance company reimburses them. I really like how they do it in the UK, but I doubt it would work in the US since we have problems getting bills paid as it is.

Other than that, it was just a busy day at the hospital because one of the orthopaedic doctors was at the outpatient clinic portion of the hospital. Seems like home because there are always people breaking bones. Tomorrow is supposed to be a slower day because only 4 doctors will be working in the outpatient portion.

After work at the hospital, I headed home to relax a bit and start writing this blog early. Megan has arrived, but she was sleeping because she had a flight just like ours, which was overnight. Then around 8pm, we had an Irish dancing lesson. It wasn’t the traditional Irish dancing. Instead, there were just a few dances. Some of the components were similar to the waltz and it reminded me of dancing in elementary school and high school. It was pretty funny because we weren’t very talented, but we had fun with it. Afterwards, we talked with Tim for a while and then just hung out.

Well, that’s all for now. Eventually I’m going to take some pictures of the hospital to post on the blog. No pictures tonight since we were dancing and it’s kind of difficult to take pictures of that.

Goodnight!