#theVIPExperience Post #29: Farhan Ilyas

I started my first Crossroad VIP rotation during the previous summer. When going in, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew that I would be helping patients with referral appointments, but I did not know how I would go about this.

Because I was out of town, I started my rotation a few weeks after the other VIPs. When I finally arrived, I was greeted with many friendly faces, but also a computer program called “NextGen” that carried a terribly intimidating amount of information. Over the next few weeks, I learned how to navigate this program and how to document my patient interactions. I would call patients and physician offices and document my calls. I also used the program to recover important information to give to the patients or information needed to schedule appointments. Ultimately, the program gave insight to how health records are kept. I was able to see how physicians document their notes and referrals, I was able to see how the health records upheld HIPAA guidelines and I was able to see how important it was to keep precise patient records. Later on, we shifted to a new system called “AthenaHealth”. When this happened, I got a look into different ways that healthcare documents are kept and I was able to problem solve through the new system.

I used my newfound knowledge of healthcare recording programs to accomplish my main goal at Crossroad: to schedule referral appointments. In simple terms, this meant calling a patient, getting their availability, then calling a physician’s office to schedule an appointment and finally ending when the patient was informed of the appointment. While doing this, I became aware of many of the problems in our current healthcare system. For starters, some patients have to wait a ridiculously long period of time for their specialist appointments. In addition, some patients are extremely difficult to get appointments for because of their insurance. It’s heartbreaking to tell a patient that the appointment they want made as soon as possible can only be made four months away. This is especially hard when the wait is half as long at a different office, but that office won’t accept the patient because of their insurance. This opened my eyes to problems that underprivileged people may have when navigating healthcare. From this, I can see how possible it would be for people in low economic areas to receive less than stellar medical attention.

My time at Crossroad has taught me a lot on how healthcare operates. From this, I have seen how a primary care physician’s office operates and I have seen first hand how healthcare can be unfair to underprivileged people. I hope that I continue to learn from my experience as I finish my second rotation. I am extremely satisfied with my time at Crossroad because I know that when I am able to navigate confusing healthcare systems to get a patient to a specialist, I am making a difference in that patient’s health.

-- Farhan Ilyas