Medical Records Department Spotlight

The medical records department is pivotal to a patient’s appointment because they do everything from preparing patient charts for the visit to distributing all the incoming faxes to all three clinics. As of right now we have seven clerks at Puget Sound Orthopaedics: Stephanie, Cindy, Justice, Kevin, Lindsey, Mary, Sarah, and Tara. Together they make a wonderful team and we want to give them a spotlight to say how much we appreciate them.

Besides the prior mentioned job duties they acquire testing and operative reports, respond to record requests, scan massive amounts of paperwork into our electronic medical record, and process over three thousands forms each year. And in case you are wondering how strenuous prepping a patient’s chart can be, try preparing over 57,000 patient charts in 2018 and making sure each one has the proper diagnostic report, operative report, demographics, outside records, and forms. It is no light task.

Some of the most challenging parts of their jobs include the high level of multitasking that is required; this includes answering phones that are consistently ringing, managing patient concerns, reading difficult to read handwriting, and calling to collect payments for forms. But there are rewarding aspects to the job as well; seeing empty bins and folders, making patients happy, and especially receiving compliments and gratitude from physicians. Medical records has also survived, like many departments here, the various overhauls of switching from paper charts to electronic medical records and adapting to new software for these systems.

The employees in medical records have various hobbies they enjoy outside of work: going to the movies, crocheting, home improvement projects, making music, traveling, sports, and many more. With all their different interests, their lead Stephanie says that the strength of the department is their ability to come together as a team and share the responsibilities of the various tasks. They communicate well across three different locations and have the utmost trust and confidence in one another.

Thank you, medical records, for all that you do at Puget Sound Orthopaedics.