I learned something new about my job today. Nobody gets it. And, that is actually something of a relief. Everything I know about medical billing and coding I’ve learned by trial and error. I got the bright idea that some training might be in order after six years at this job. So, I went to a seminar.

Although I expected to be lost in the maze of terminology, I thought I’d at least understand the general overview or the introduction. Wrong. I forgot this company speaks in acronyms and compound sentences.

What I didn’t expect was how many other people are equally baffled by the system. Eventually, it came down to this: Each person had a working knowledge of the two or three pages of the 6000 page manual that pertains to their niche. The cardiology ladies understood heart surgery codes. The woman working for a podiatrist knew toes.

And, miracle of miracles, I know family-practice-in-the-middle-of-a-cornfield.

I did learn some things. Mostly about where to find resources for the things I don’t know. And I came home thinking life is pretty much this way. If I look at the big picture of suicide rates among the Lakota people of South Dakota, the number of homeless children in Brazil, or the thousands of demons-dressed-as-gods in India, I despair.

But, if I remember that my job today is simply to love the next person who walks through our clinic door, I’m fine. I can do that. (I can even file their Medicare claim, I think.)