PRN PSR

In English that means on-call patient service representative. In real life that means I am a receptionist that fills in at doctors offices that are part of Bon Secours (a company of 11,000 employees) whenever someone transfers or quits or gets sick or pregnant, which really means that I have work Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t had work since I started on October 12, which I’m grateful for. By now I’ve worked at 10 or 15 facilities. (The story of how I got the job is under ‘jobs.’)

I remember doctors offices as being quiet, calm places with giant aquariums  or little Flintstone video games and lots of waiting. I don’t remember any mayhem of phones ringing off the hook with complaining or needy impatient patients–“Good morning this is Tonya at Bon Secours, can you hold please?” “Good morning this is Tonya at Bon Secours can you hold for just a minute?” “Good morn-I mean afternoon this is Tonya at Bon Secours how can I help you?”

–or the scrambling for the waiting patient’s chart which somehow has disappeared, or the never-ending faxes that pile up, or the vicious behind-the-back verbal battles of PSRs vs doctor or nurses vs PSR or everyone vs patients (the battles are what get me the most. How about more positivity and love in the world…). Not to mention the horrific mess that always seems to accompany insurance companies. We won’t go into that today.

At first the job was overwhelming. You just have to learn a million practice-specific procedures that you can’t intuitively pick up; you have to be told how things are done, which means you have to ask a million questions. “Uh, where does this go?” “This patient needs this; what do I do?” “How does Dr. Fulana do her scheduling?” It finally dawned on me to thank Heavenly Father after those first few weeks for making me feel more like a child than I had in a long time.

Then the job became monotonous in a crazy sort of way. Not boring, because everything’s always crazy. Just same-old same-old everyday monotony, the same problems and questions being called in over and over again. This patient needs a prescription refill. That patient needs an appointment. This one wants his lab results. That one is concerned about her bill. Hello how are you today. What’s your name and date of birth.

At some offices I haven’t had to deal with a lot of the patient calls because I’m just in charge of check-in or check-out. But at this one I’m currently at the phone seems to ring a lot, and there are two of us who answer most of the time. Sometimes it feels like I  just get off the phone only to have it ringing again.

The good thing about the phones ringing all the time is that it struck me with a thought today while I was eating lunch. Backstory on the thought: I started always praying before I go into work that I’ll remember God’s plan and remember that everyone I talk to is a child of God and remember that I’m here to build the kingdom of God even at a doctors office. I tell you what, those are hard things to remember. I have to pray because I always forget during the craziness of the day and I just get tired of people, which is why I get out of the office to eat lunch by myself in the car sometimes. I have to pray for a lot of charity because it doesn’t come to me naturally. So the thought that struck me today when I was reading the Book of Mormon was that Heavenly Father is answering our prayers all day and all night for eternity, the prayers of a lot more people with a lot more problems than the ones calling into our office everyday. So I realized answering phones is one thing I’m supposed to go through to learn to be more like Heavenly Father, more patient and loving.

Ironically, one thing I love about being a floater is that I do get to meet a lot of different individuals. (I say individuals instead of people because I really do like getting to know individuals one-on-one, but it’s the onslaught of people’s problems and complaints that gets bogging-downish.) I feel like that’s one of the reasons I got this job specifically, so that I can share the gospel with many people in several offices instead of some people in just one office. And the coworkers usually are very good people who I usually enjoy getting to know .

In fact, this last place I’ve been at is by far the one I prefer the most (even with the phones) because it has the most positive atmosphere, meaning that the PSRs, doctors, nurses and patients seem to get along the best of any office I’ve been too. They’re–for the most part–positive about each other. If I were to accept a full-time position anywhere, here would be it. (Since I often fill in for people who have transferred or quit, the position I’m filling in for is often available and I’ve even gotten a couple offers, which I’ve turned down.) But I don’t think I’ll take a full-time position anywhere because of what I just said, namely, I feel like I should stay a floater so I can share the gospel, because between everything we do there are snippets of time when I can mention something of the church here or there.

The moral of the story is, Heavenly Father has a way of teaching us what we need to learn through our unique experiences.

And you know what, I do like this job. I have had a lot of good times and things really aren’t as dramatic as I depict them to be. And I have way too much fun taking these silly random pictures.