Question

It was yet another busy day at the outpatient lab. Sara, a new patient care advocate, worked quickly to keep up with the volume of patients. In attempts to keep moving patients through the lab, Sara didn’t realize that a couple of patients slipped through with expired outpatient lab requisition orders. She knows all lab work must be done with current orders – this is part of the policies and procedures of the practice. Mandy, the coder, picked up the results of the lab paperwork, including the orders, to code. When Mandy saw the two patients with expired lab requisition orders she became concerned.

1. What should Mandy do?

2. Do you think it is acceptable to code from these expired lab orders? Why or why not?

3. How could this error be avoided in the future?

4. If you were the manager of the lab, what process(es) might you change to prevent errors like this one from occurring again?

Answer 1

1. What should Mandy do?

Answer : mandy should correct her mistake in order to create a healthy coding. all lab work must be done with current orders. So she could contact with those patients who slipped with expired order and make them a new order and code it with that new orders.

2.. Do you think it is acceptable to code from these expired lab orders? Why or why not?

Answer : I don't think that expired lab orders are may not acceptable to code. Coding needs adequate data with proper valid details a slight negligence in code may be leads to a big error in future. So that it is important to use a valid lab order to avoid these further complications.

3. How could this error be avoided in the future?

Answer : Mandy should be more vigilant during her work. She can cross match every order from every patient to find out such errors. May be she ask help of hospital security guard to control the people if they are uncontrollable or too busy.

4. If you were the manager of the lab, what process(es) might you change to prevent errors like this one from occurring again?

Answer : I will provide more workers in busy days in order to reduce the work load in a single patient advocate. Or at least I will provide an experienced advocate in these busy days. And help her with adequate guards to control people and correct this kind of errors.