The Paperwork Blues?

The Daily Muse

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Do you love paperwork?  Isn't that the favorite part of your job as a music therapist??


I actually think we, as music therapists, don't have it too bad with the paperwork load.  Sure, there are some agencies that require more reports than are really necessary, but we can often just keep our session notes and write up quarterly reports of progress and annual reviews and be done.  


What do you think?  Does paperwork get you down?  Do you have a strategy for dealing with it?  Perhaps you have gone hi-tech and do everything on a tablet??  Or are you old-school and still keeping track by hand?


When I worked in private practice, we had one person that did office work and took care of all the contracting, payroll and paperwork requests.  This left the therapists to do the weekly chart notes, progress reports and annual reviews.  This arrangement really seemed to work out well.  


For those of you that are a "one man/woman show," how do you keep a balance?  Do you feel like the paperwork is getting you down or is it about right?  


Dr. Christopher Chang at KevinMD.com talks a little bit about the crazy world of medical paperwork that seems to be haunting doctors in his blog post titled, "Paperwork Causes Unintended Distractions for Physicians and Nurses." 


Can you relate to his discussion?  I don't think many music therapists are getting calls in the middle of their Hello songs to answer paperwork questions, but I think the trend might be in that direction.