Consciousness Raising Exercise #17

BPH Hospital has a contract with a nationwide transcription firm. When working on any of the agency's other hospital accounts, medical transcriptionists have been requested to send a note to the dictating physician explaining why they have flagged a particular report for that physician's attention. Curiously, the agency's medical transcriptionists have been told not to waste their time writing such notes to doctors dictating reports for BPH Hospital. Why not?

• BPH Hospital's medical record director does not want to pay for any extra lines in her reports.

• The doctors on staff at BPH Hospital have made it abundantly clear that they aren't interested in learning about any mistakes in their dictation and don't want to be bothered with notes from medical transcriptionists.

In 100 words or less, explain the risk management issues raised by these policies: