It pays EMTs to dot I’s and cross T’s

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It pays EMTs to dot I’s and cross T’s

In Vegas, they get bonus for proper paperwork, but city touts savings
By Joe Schoenmann
Wed, Apr 22, 2009 (2 a.m.)

Las Vegas pays its paramedics and EMTs a bonus said to be unique — for properly filling out paperwork. Those payments totaled more than $600,000 last year, and Clark County officials are worried the emergency workers in their fire department will try to copy their city colleagues.

Las Vegas’ emergency medical technicians and paramedics are paid extra for properly filling out paperwork after transporting someone to the hospital, $20 for an EMT and $30 for each paramedic.
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http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/apr/22/it-pays-fill-out-forms-correctly/
 
What is this world coming to? Great for the guys getting paid extra for doing their job right, but what will they do will there is no more handout, just half-a** everything til they get paid again? This doesn't seem like very good practice at all, especially with some of these cocky EMTs just starting out. They'll get used to it and think they are entitled to it.
Whatever happened to doing your job right the first time?
 
If you knew the amount of money paid to billing companies for tracking down info on a pt, you would know why they do it. $30 a pt is cheap, if they go the extra mile to get all the Pt's info for billing purposes!
 
AMR instituted a paperwork scoring system company wide this spring. Our reports are "graded" for information. It bugs me because I do my very best to fill out all the information and to ensure that my reports are thorough and complete. I lose "points" if I miss something - even if it's on the second half of a 48 with 3 hours of sleep and 15 calls under my belt. There is medic paperwork and there is EMT paperwork. Both are dinged for omissions on either set. I fortunately don't give a rat's a-- for what my paperwork "points" are but it is irritating to me. It offends me because I pride myself on professionalism and an honest mistake is just that. Perhaps it encourages others to be more careful - I can't say.
I am also bugged that we get no feedback as to what our scores were - if someone is consistently making the same mistake, wouldn't it make sense to tell them what it is so they can fix it?
So far, there is no bonus or demerit involved for scoring high or low. I think if you are going to do this stuff, tossing some extra bucks to people who are meticulous is a good idea. I know that in our station, a few extra dollars will totally motivate some of the don't give a damns....
 
Go to court a few times, that will fix your paperwork problem.
 
Stewart1990 said:
What is this world coming to? Great for the guys getting paid extra for doing their job right, but what will they do will there is no more handout, just half-a** everything til they get paid again? This doesn't seem like very good practice at all, especially with some of these cocky EMTs just starting out. They'll get used to it and think they are entitled to it.
Whatever happened to doing your job right the first time?
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Right. They should dock your pay by $20 or $30 each time your paper isn't filled out.
 
W1IM said:
Right. They should dock your pay by $20 or $30 each time your paper isn't filled out.
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You don't know management, do you? They can always find something wrong with anyones paperwork! Not giving them a reason to screw you worse.
 
reaper said:
You don't know management, do you? They can always find something wrong with anyones paperwork! Not giving them a reason to screw you worse.
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Looks like I lost a word in my previous post. In any case, there would have to be specific conditions where you would be penalized, like not completing the GCS section. Another good example would be filling out the pupil response for one eye and not the other, and not noting why this was done (pt only has one eye or similar).

I'm an engineer for a defense contractor, so tracibility in documents is extremely important. Some of the things on PCRs that I have seen (or not seen) are downright scary.

My point in all this was just that an agency should not reward people for just adaquately performing their job. Go above and beyond, then sure. The response to underperforming should be some penalty, as it would be in any other job.
 
I agree. Normally that would be getting fired for doing a bad job!
 
I saw this article next to one about the LV FFs calling the coroner on the front page of the newspaper's website. Even if they are separate agencies it doesn't give a good impression of EMT(P)s to the public.
 
W1IM said:
My point in all this was just that an agency should not reward people for just adaquately performing their job. Go above and beyond, then sure. The response to underperforming should be some penalty, as it would be in any other job.
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Exactly my thought.

As much as I completely understand being at then end of a long shift and being frustrated, it's a part of the job. Do you see people at McDonald's getting a bonus for every 10 sandiches they complete corectly? No, it's expected, because it's apart of the job.

Kudos for wanting to motivate the EMTs and medics, but I think they could find a better way.
 
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