One of these days when I ask myself if it’s just me, somebody’s going to shout back, “Of course it’s just you!” It seems I do well until I am forced to interact with someone. Nobody ever suggested I take a job of receptionist. Did I just say ‘receptionist’? (Here’s the segue.)

So, I walk into the podiatrist–to have my slightly torn Achilles examined–there are twelve chairs and nineteen people in the small room.  The receptionist inquires, (this is a direct quote), “Is this the first time you’ve been here recently?”  Since I haven’t had the pleasure of speaking with most of you, you may not know that I’m one of those people who believe that if you are going to speak English, you might as well speak it correctly.  As her sentence was perfectly flawed, she left me no choice but to repeat it. “Is this the first time you’ve been here recently?” I asked rhetorically. She did not understand why I asked her what she had asked me. I thought of trying it another way. “Is this the first time I’ve been here, no. Have I been here recently, no. Is this the first time you’ve been here recently—I have no idea what you mean.”

Was it her fault there were no seats in the waiting room—no. Would that stop me from getting pithy the next time—probably not? Blame the Y chromosome for the attitude.  Maybe it’s a hunter-gatherer thing; something to do with the urge to cook everything over an open flame. I really am nice to children and dogs, really. I then asked how long I should expect to wait and she told me there was nobody in front of me.  Maybe the other 19 people were mannequins.

The doctor is a family friend.  He’s part of a ten physician practice with three locations.  Two therapy practices are semi-incorporated into their practice.  After the exam we chatted about EHR, and what plans they had.  it was a brief chat.  They’d received several sales calls.  He showed me the stack of brochures.  He summarized saying that they knew they ought to do something about it, but had no idea where to being or who to believe.  They had assigned the task to their youngest partner, believing that his age made him the most computer savvy.

He told me that the other specialists who officed in the building had opted for the same do nothing approach for reasons ranging from cost to lack of knowledge.  He asked my why if EHR was so important that nobody with any credibility had developed some sort of DIY EHR or EHR for Dummies.

I asked his assistant to send me an Outlook invitation for my next appointment.  She just smiled and and wrote the appoinment information on a small card.

Have you found anything or created anything along the lines of a DIY program that you found helpful?