Sunday, January 5, 2014

Dental Assisting Blunder

Everyone in Dental field know December is the busiest month of the year. Not a great time to commit a blunder. You know, when we get busy the stress increases. Then there will be mistakes too.

I started working with this new place only three months back. The owner has two offices and I used to work in the newer office usually. When it was holidays, I was asked to help out in the older office. 

Dr.X asked for two bitewings and a PA. The office was busy and Dr.x took the chart to finish writing. I finished the X-rays, and dismissed the patient. When the processing was done, I was seating the next patient. When the second patient was done with the treatment, I arranged the X-rays and wrote the name I think, belong to the correct patient. The front office filed the X-ray according to the name. 

The patient came after Christmas for the filling. I was again in that office, I had no memory of this patient at all. Dr.X remembered about the X-rays, but they were not in the file. I went to check the usual places I might have placed them... They were not anywhere to be found. You know, how it will look like...

Then, the front office checked the schedule to find out his previous appointment and took out all charts  on that day. There the genius receptionist found out the X-rays filed in another chart, with names matching. But, she being in the same office for several years, happened to remember, that no X-rays were taken for that patient. 
Dr.X compared the radiograph with the patients mouth to make sure. 

Yes, it was my big blunder


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