Our complience people have asked us to be careful about putting the actual 
physician down who performed a procedure that resulted in us getting a 
surgical pathology specimen. Many of our patients are on Medicare, and we 
will not get reimbursed unless the paperwork is exactly right. Often the 
physician listed on a patients addressograph is the admittting physician, not 
the one working up a patient.
We have also been requested to get the date of surgery correct as we may not 
get reimbursed if that is incorrect
Being a teaching hospital with residents, they sometimes perform a procedure 
under the guidence of an attending physician, then they mistakenly put their 
own name on the surgical path slip, which won't work either as they don't 
have a medicare number. ( an attending physician may supervise two residents, 
I think is the rule)
I guess many of you have been in situations where a sick patient shows up and 
the neurologists look at the head, the GI folks look at the gut, the 
oncologist does a bone marrow, etc, etc. You need a law degree to sort out 
who did what.

Mike Titford
USA Pathology
Mobile AL