I'm finally posting...i know i know

Hello hello! I received an IM from Jenna several weeks ago requesting that I explain my job on this blog, so I figured I would honor her wishes by posting for the first time. Sorry it's taken me so long-- I've been cheating and reading yall's posts without doing my own!

Sooo...life after college does indeed exist. It's not quite as strange as I imagined, but I am still living in Chapel Hill (well, Carrboro) with people who are still in school. I'm working at Duke, and to be honest, I am glad my job is not right in Chapel Hill. After spending four years non-stop living and working there, it's nice to have a change (even if that change is DOOK).

Since the end of June I've been working at the Clinical Research Support Office (fondly referred to as the CRSO) at Duke Medical Center. It's a brand new department, which makes every single day a challenge. Before this job I never realized how resistant people are to a change from the status quo- even if that change is for the best. Basically, my office works with the contracts and patient bills generated from clinical research at Duke. We make sure that the doctors doing the research (the Principle Investigators) are doing procedures that are approved by Medicare and other insurance companies, and we also physically decide where every single patient charge related to clinical research should be billed (right now we are working with Oncology patients). This is pretty difficult because 1) none of us in the office is a doctor and we have to read all the clinical/nurse's notes to determine how to bill things, and 2) I basically had to learn (in several weeks) the rules of Medicare as they apply to clinical trials. I think this is ridiculous because people go to med school for years (clearly) to learn some of this stuff, and I'm sure others go to school to learn about all the meticulous rules of Medicare, but in our office we just learn as we go. The overall purpose of our office is to make sure the doctors' contracts and budgets are legitimate so Duke isn't audited, fined, etc. by the federal government. Apparently some big time auditing by the Feds went down at Yale right before Duke created our office. This puts a constant pressure on us, because as much as I hate DOOK, I don't want Duke Medical Center and all the patients being treated by these rock star doctors, to get the smack down.
As much as it is frustrating, all in all I really am enjoying it. Almost everyone I work this is under the age of 25, and most of them went to UNC. (There is only one guy from Duke, and WOW-- let's just say he's not the brightest bulb...). Billy works there as well, so we are all constantly entertained by his mini dance sessions in our cubicles.
I feel really lucky to have this job, because it's an amazing opportunity. Duke has contracted out some amazing IT people to build this new software program to help with billing, and it's the first of it's kind in the country. I'm actually the Team Leader/Project Manager for the CRSO Billing Teaming, so I get to talk to the IT creators and give input almost everyday while they develop the system. Even though I've had to work some annoyingly long hours and go to annoyingly long meetings with annoyingly intimidating people from the Hospital, it's been an awesome opportunity. I've already learned so much and now I think I might want to be a lawyer for a Hospital, or a Contracts Manager for clinical research (these people usually have their JD).
Cheryl and Meredith always laugh at me because I ask a lot of questions about drugs and other medical stuff, but I really feel like I'm getting some valuable experience. It's also cool to know that my job is somehow (kinda) helping people who are getting treatment at Duke.

So, I realize that was an incredibly long description, but it's kind of a hard job to sum up. Thanks for bearing through it and I hope all that wasn't too boring!

I miss you all L-O-T-S. I hope wedding planning, PT school, working in a clinic, etc is going great for those of you I don't see very often. Keep reppin the VIP life. and JENNA-- congrats on being done with your application!!

I love you guys!!

Holler.