I went back to work and realized that some things are better- but there is still a lot of depression there, and it was being away from work with no demands on me that made things seem even better than they were. Still, the irritability is gone- and that was getting so bad my last week of work. That is a relief. My concentration is better. I just still feel sad and hopeless and resigned- it is hard to explain.
I feel like- okay, I can function, and I really have to try to stay on top of things- but there is no joy in it. But it is my paycheck. So I am stuck. And I can't think of anything else that I want to do that pays the bills. I am just trying to get it all right and get things done. It doesn't matter how I feel.
And then I went home and got ice cream on the way home and ate the whole thing. This is not the way to live my life.
I know that what I am is burned out by the paperwork side of my job. It has gotten so much worse over the past year. I don't know if there is a way to take a more light hearted approach to it- to see it as a game, etc. I don't know. I have to try.
Money. If I had enough, would I really quit my job? Most days I would say no. But I would work part time.
1 comment:
Working part-time actually never helped me. Both jobs that I was part-time expected me to get 40 hours of work done in 36 or 32 hours and both jobs fired me. Paperwork was impossible to keep up with.
Would another facility be better to work for? I think you said you have to do all your own insurance auths and that's a ton of work. I know that thinking about change right now is not helpful, I'm really just asking. I know around here places are so desperate for anyone with even a bit of experience with hands that a CHT would be employed in seconds. One reason that I know I want to go to the place that I"ll use for therapy is that they manage to be fully staffed (I don't know about a CHT though) and around here that means you are a great employer. I'll even be able to have an ortho-certified PT which I'd never get anywhere else here (and I really want someone experienced with this because after 3 months of NWB and immobilization it will take somone good to release scarring and get the muscle back.) I'm sure there are many people who have the same feeling about a CHT; you can do things that I simply can't do.
Paperwork for healthcare is beyond ridiculous. When I started working about 14 years ago I took my paperwork home on flex time (no HiPPA) and all we had to do was evals and weekly notes. Then discharge summaries were required fairly soon after that and the paperwork has grown and grown since. It has to feel impossible by now; it was reaching impossible when I left 3 years ago.
You have my sympathy with that part of it. I believe in documentation in detail and so paperwork would pile up even more because I was doing what I felt was ethically accurate and because I read what I co-signed in detail b/c the one time I did't my COTA who was about to get fired put the entirely wrong kind of splint on someone and then documented about it and I didn't catch it for a week or two. It was so frustrating when the patient care part was not the hard part at all.
JMJ
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