Behind the Scenes with the Surgery Schedulers
手术计划是患者护理的关键组成部分，这是协调患者的个人日程安排和需求，外科医生的时间表，进入医院设施和保险授权的复杂过程。如果该过程的一个要素失败，则患者的护理计划就会停止。当一切顺利进行时，调度程序是ENT团队的无形部分。
“In many ways surgery schedulers are the unsung heroes in a surgical practice,” saysMartin J. Citardi, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Texas McGovern Medical School at Houston and chief of the ENT service at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. “Our schedulers – Nicole Scallion and America Macias – make the very complex coordination of schedules look easy. They’re strong team players and provide great service to our patients and physicians.”
Nicole Scallion, who joined the Department three years ago, has been scheduling surgeries for the past two years. As the Department’s practice has grown, so has her workload. Today she schedules surgeries at five facilities for six physicians – facial plastic and reconstructive surgeonTang Ho, MD, head and neck cancer specialistRon Karni, MD, rhinologist and researcherAmber U. Luong, MD, PhD, rhinologistWilliam C. Yao, MD, and head and neck cancer/reconstructive surgery specialistKunal Jain, MD, in addition to Dr. Citardi.
“我是一个非常大的人，” Scallion说。“我一直想在医疗领域工作，当我有机会在ENT诊所工作时，我抓住了机会。每天都是不同的，具体取决于医生在诊所中。。如果我与Citardi博士，Luong博士和Yao博士（Rhinanologists）度过了一天，那通常会更加平静。当Karni博士，Ho博士和Jain博士在诊所中时，这总是很忙的一天，因为他们维持了积极的手术时间表，许多病例需要八到12个小时或更长时间。如果其中一位医生想与其他医生进行协调，那么将它们全部放在OR中并围绕患者的时间表进行工作可能会很复杂。有时我们必须来回做一点。”
America Macias, CMA, joined the practice as a medical assistant for pediatric otolaryngologists Sancak Yuksel, MD, and Soham Roy, MD, FACS, FAAP, director of pediatric ENT and quality officer for the Department. Today she schedules surgery for three other otolaryngologists as well:Ibrahim “Trey” Alava, MD, Ronda Alexander, MD, director of theTexas Voice Performance Institute™，小儿耳鼻喉科医生Zi Yang Jiang, MD。
After completing a nine-month medical assistant program at Everest Institute in Austin, Texas, Macias spent four and a half years gaining experience at two ENT practices before joining Dr. Citardi’s group in September 2013.
“我enjoy working with patients,” she says. “As an medical assistant I developed a knowledge base about various medical conditions and procedures. If a patient sits with me to schedule a surgery, I can answer other questions for them as well. Because I schedule for the pediatric ENTs, I meet with parents and help them work through any time constraints. They want their child to miss as little school as possible, so we do the best we can to work around their schedules.”
大多数手术都需要授权保险，在某些情况下，调度程序会在很短的时间内进行工作，尤其是当紧急情况添加到已经安排的紧急情况下。一旦预定患者进行手术，葱和Macias验证保险。。
“If there’s a physician fee, we let patients know in advance,” Macias says. “Sometimes the physician is out of network for a particular patient’s private insurance or Medicaid plan. Some patients decide to stay with the physician and change to another insurance plan.”
Both women say they derive much satisfaction from grateful physicians and patients. The physicians are always appreciative and complimentary,” Scallion says. “Once the patients have had surgery, many of them – especially the cancer patients – stop by and say thank you so much for getting my surgery scheduled. The demands on us are often great but so are the rewards.”