Outpatient Clinic Introduction
Our clinics do not function like a normal private practice. Flexibility is key to your success in clinic. The schedule may change many times throughout the day due to travel and Medicaid travel authorization constraints on patients. We make every effort to keep the same nurse with the same provider, but due to limitations in staffing you may have a different nurse day to day.
Below are some reminders to your transition to outpatient clinics:
Review your schedule with your assigned nurse daily (and throughout the day) to make sure patients are appropriately scheduled. If you find any errors please notify your charge nurse immediately.
Review RAVEN and VAKTRAK immunization records for each patient. Use the encounter to update any outstanding vaccinations.
Review the problem list, medications, labs and previous documentation in RAVEN prior to seeing the patient.
Occasionally you may need to review the paper chart and the old RPMS/IHS system. Multiple providers (including health aides) have seen the patient many times prior to them coming to clinic in Bethel. This makes reviewing the chart in RAVEN essential to providing quality and consistent care.
Review and update all patient’s problem and medication lists with every encounter. It is important that any problems (and plans for these problems) are clearly documented in the problem list for any future provider. Pertinent care plans can be added to the comments section attached to each problem. This provides quick reference for follow up providers. Meaningful Use requires maintaining an updated patient problem and medication lists.
Weather delays: Consider having your nurse call in your Bethel patients to be seen earlier that day for village patients arriving later due to weather. If you have no patients to be seen consider pulling level 4 and 5 patients from the ER. Discuss this with your charge nurse as well as ER charge nurse. This is best arranged by having the provider communicate directly with the emergency department.
