EMT bonus money could be better spent

Virginia Singer, Las Vegas

Friday, April 24, 2009 | 2:04 a.m.

I was enraged after reading an article in Wednesday’s Las Vegas Sun, “It pays EMTs to dot I’s, cross T’s”: That EMTs earn bonus money for completing paperwork is only one example of the problems with our health care system as well as with work ethic in general.

When did it become a practice to get a bonus for doing what is expected on your job? I am going to ask my employers if they will give me a bonus if I show up when I am supposed to be there.

Spending $2.6 million in bonus money for doing what is expected, while we have folks homeless and without medical care, is a sin. Many uninsured and underinsured people could receive health care with that money. Las Vegas residents should be ashamed for allowing this to happen.

There is no question that professional and efficient documentation is required for reimbursement from insurance companies. However, when the focus is shifted to paperwork and away from patients, something is horribly wrong with health care.

I have a solution for the EMTs wanting bonus pay for paperwork: Replace the EMTs with nurses. Nurses — I am a nurse practitioner — learn very early in their training the importance of complete documentation and they do not receive bonuses for doing what is expected of them.

What everyone needs to understand is that the quality of the information found in paperwork is not equal to quality patient care.