Thursday, August 09, 2007

Audited!

Do you know what makes for a fun day? How about checking your mailbox and getting a letter from the Department of Health? How about that letter being from that Narcotics Department?

Still not having fun?

I'm not in trouble. It was just a letter alerting me that one of my charming patients has been bouncing from hospital to hospital, and I was one of FIVE people who sent him home with a prescription for narcotics in a period of a few weeks. However, I do not appreciate having made the Narcotics Division's list.

Being in Emergency Medicine, there is no continuity of care. We have computerized records, so I am able to look up a particular patient's recent visits and hopefully someone documented what scripts they sent them home with. Unfortunately, there's no city-wide list, so other than reviewing our own records I don't have any way to prevent this from happening again. The best I can do is stick to supplying only a few days of meds at a time and referring people back to their regular doctor. Argh.

1 comment:

~~Silk said...

It sounds like the Dept of Health does have a comprehensive compilation. Wouldn't it make sense for you folks to be able to tap their records? It doesn't make sense for them to know and you not. If you have access to and update their records at the time of prescribing controlled meds, then the records would be real-time.

I have to wonder why not....