An Announcement From the Message Goat...

A*

Ahem?

I said...AHEM!

Thank you.

Ladies, and Gentlemen, it brings me great sadness to make today's announcement about the Bohemian Road Nurse.

As you all know, Bo has been managing the Podunk Branch Office of her Road Nurse Company for a few months now and has had to deal with all kinds of ups and downs along the way. Her patience and sanity have been sorely tested a few times, and she has fretted herself to death trying to navigate her office, patients, and staff safely through those ups and downs.

And also, as you know, the world of road nursing is a nebulous and unpredictable business, habitually employing a large amount of quirky, mercurial nurses (some say they're "wild and crazy").

And, as mentioned in one of Bo's previous blog postings, one of her LVN's, Lee-Lee, was offered a job at a competitor road nurse company---and accepted the job.

When Lee-Lee left, it left Bo's office short-staffed, which caused a great hardship on the the staff who were left because it's a small office without any substitute nurses to call in whenever there's a shortage.

But every cloud has a silver lining---and I will tell you a very positive and joyful note, which is the fact that Bo was finally able to steal Belinda away from her current job at a competitor road nurse company!

So now, Belinda (who is an RN) has come to work for Bo. This was a good move for Belinda as she was not happy at her own road nurse company, even though it was a small operation which did not work her to death like the large corporate company which she, Bo and Geena-Lou all used to work at before (that horrendous company which Bo talked about in her previous blog posting called "Band of Sisters..." )

Also, Belinda and Bo have always wanted to work together again ever since they both left that above-mentioned large company.

But I'm afraid that I've also got to tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that it developed into quite an ugly incident when Bo stole Belinda from that other road nurse company. In fact, that company was so angry about the deed that, shockingly, they wrote Belinda a "hot" check for her last paycheck's wages.

And this did not sit well with Bo as 1) Belinda is her best friend; 2) Belinda was so broke that she had less than $100 in her bank account--- and sorely needed the money; 3) it is illegal for an employer to write a hot check for earned wages; and 4) Belinda is timid---and has a very difficult time standing up for herself in such situations.

Thus, Bo was forced to utilize her ....uh.... "biker chick personality" to obtain Belinda's rightfully earned money. I won't give you the details here except to say that the Podunk Po-Leece ended up getting involved.

And Belinda dang well got her money....

(But much as I hate to say it, I've got to admit that that Bo certainly....er...knows how to get things done, that's for dang sure. I'm sure Bo will tell you about it when she next blogs... )

Anyway, the addition of Belinda to Bo's staff was a wonderful coup which will greatly help Bo, as having an additional RN will enable Bo to have more time to perform her managerial and office duties, which have been sadly neglected lately. At first glance, Belinda's arrival definitely signalled that things were starting to look up for the little company after all those ups and downs I mentioned.

But then.... a terrible thing happened.....

The change in staff (losing an LVN and gaining an RN) meant that a reorganization of job assignments was in order . Having another RN to help perform the RN-only patient visits meant that there would be a few more "routine" patient visits that would need to be assigned to an LVN. This is because, in home health care, RN's are primarily utilized as "case managers", which means that they mostly perform certain types of specialized patient evaluations which are required by Medicare--- and those particular patient visits must be done at certain, strictly-defined intervals.

And unfortunately, these particular type of patient visits require unrealistically copious amounts of Medicare paperwork which takes up a huge part of an RN's time.

Thus, RN's necessarily perform less patient visits than do LVN's in order to give the RN time to perform all the necessary paperwork, calls/faxes to doctors, decision-making, and other "case management" duties required of that particular position's responsibilities and documentation requirements. And so, even though Belinda came to work for Bo and could help out by doing RN stuff (and also some routine patient visits), a replacement LVN would still be needed to perform the remaining patient visits that would not fit into Belinda's schedule of RN-only visits. And it really isn't that many visits--- maybe 4 or 5 a week.

Which basically meant that Geena-Lou, an LVN who has heretofore been the Office Manager, would have to occasionally go out in the field and perform those leftover patient visits. But only a few---nothing major which would interfere with her office job duties.

But upon learning of all this, Geena-Lou threw a complete "conniption fit" about it! And not only that, but she hotly declared that she "had been hired to be an office manager and was NOT going to allow the company to 'turn her back into a field nurse'"!

As you can imagine, this shocking development greatly bewildered Bo, because although Geena-Lou's primary function was office manager, it was always understood that she would go out into the field and do patient visits if necessary.

The two argued about it for days. And it caused Bo a great deal of heartache as she dearly loves Geena-Lou like a sister and simply couldn't believe that Geena-Lou would throw away their friendship and her job over a few patient visits.

Bo lost a great deal of sleep about this issue night after night, tossing and turning in bed, wondering why in the hell Geena-Lou wouldn't go along with the changes, especially since an old friend like Belinda was now going to be aboard. It just simply didn't make any sense...

And it wasn't like Geena-Lou wasn't able to be a good field nurse---hell, she, Bo and Belinda all used to work together at that former road nurse company and had all worked very well together, seeing many patients every single day.

And what's even more heartbreaking is that the three have always been good friends... through thick and thin....

Day by day, Bo tried her best to explain to Geena-Lou that allowances would be made for Geena-Lou's work load so that her having to perform patient visits would not overload her office work schedule. Bo promised Geena-Lou over and over that she would lighten her office duties--with Bo taking over doing the scheduling and auditing--- and the data entry staff at the Home Office taking over the Medicare billing functions.

But it was all to no avail. Geena-Lou steadfastly continued her rebellion and stated emphatically that she would "absolutely NOT do patient visits as she was supposed to be the office manager". This mystified Bo and the rest of the staff. Why in the world wouldn't Geena-Lou want to do a few patient visits? It didn't make sense to anybody.

Hell, Bo is the damn Branch Manager and even SHE does patient visits!

Bo tried everything with Geena-Lou....

She begged, she cried, she pleaded... She assured Geena-Lou of how much she loved her, valued her friendship, and admired her as a nurse. She practically got down on her hands and knees to PROMISE Geena-Lou that she would NEVER, EVER do anything that would make Geena-Lou unhappy in her job.

But Geena-Lou would not budge from her declaration that she would NOT do the visits.

Finally, after much heartache, lost sleep, crying, and discussion with the company's owners, Bo was forced to do something so horrendously unpleasant that she's still shedding tears over it today....

She had to fire Geena-Lou.

Okay, that is all from your Message Goat for now, Ladies and Gentlemen. Bo is trying to regain her composure after the above-mentioned incident, and she is also trying to figure out a way to find another LVN---while attempting to keep her co-workers' spirits up in the meantime. Belinda's friendship and support are a great help to her---and Belinda is also getting along famously with Jane-Anne since they are both pregnant and love to talk about "pregnancy stuff". (Bo has a sweater and a blanket on the knitting needles for both of them.)

(Bo uses her knitting as a relaxation measure, and I must tell you that, lately, those knitting needles of hers have been going back and forth so fast that I could have sworn that I saw sparks flying from them yesterday....)

Anyway, Ladies and Gentlemen, refreshments will be served in the back pasture--- and please remember to use some common courtesy and not to do "your business" in that pasture as it is the one the sheep graze in---and that means you, donkeys, as you know that Bo doesn't like donkeys or donkey pies....

That is all from your Message Goat for today....

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