Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

7. Brian

CHAPTER 7

After half an hour of soft tissue work, Kodi is standing again and walking stiltedly around the office. Despite her careful steps, it’s clear that her legs are in a totally different state than they were when she came in. Her bad knee is actually carrying weight now, and the leg isn’t bowing inward like it was before. Her hips are sitting level over her ankles, and the arches of her feet appear to be distributing the weight of her steps into her toes instead of sinking towards the floor like they were earlier.

“How do you feel?”

“I think I feel good?” Her voice is slightly nervous, and she tugs down at her skirt a little, bending stiffly at the waist as she does like a child pretending to be a little teapot.

“You look like you’re walking better.”

“Yeah?” She takes a few more steps, this time more surely, with her hips swaying more naturally as she makes the small circuit around the office. “Alright. Cool!” Every step brings with it a little more confidence as her feet squish into the foam-padded floor of my office. I smile. “So, what do I owe you?”

“Right! Uh,” I pause for a moment, looking around the office as I try to remember where I put my card reader for taking payments. Then I remember that I could just put her information into my payment and booking software, but my laptop isn’t on the desk where it should be.

Shit. This is the kind of thing that the health center took care of for me when I worked there. Obviously, I knew that when I started working for myself I’d need to handle all the administrative duties in addition to seeing patients. So I did invest in the software I needed to make that happen.

Doesn’t mean that I actually figured out how all of it works yet.

“Um. Can I send you an invoice later?” Once I figure out how invoices work?

“Sure. How much is it, just so I know what to budget for?”

“Uh. Well, it’s a first appointment, so…” How much had I decided those should cost? First appointments are a lot more paperwork than follow-ups, so normally we would charge extra at the center for those, but I had floated around the idea of offering a discount to new patients to get them in the door while I was setting up the practice… “Um. Fifty?”

She tilts her head at me, looking amused. “You sure about that?”

Oh shit. I’m used to being in the city, where the prices are probably a lot higher than they are here. What even is the median income in Tuft Swallow? “Sorry. Forty?”

“I’m not trying to bargain with you,” she says, laughing a little. “You’re worth every penny. I’m just wondering why you sounded unsure. Don’t you have a price list?”

“Well, yes, but…” I rub my neck. “What with the grand opening and all, I was going to have introductory rates.” I think. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.

“For a medical practice?” Kodi squints at me, making me shuffle uncomfortably. “You mean like, free consultations? Or actual discounts on adjustments? Just charge me full-price. I feel like you gave me my freebie this morning at the clinic.”

“Oh. Sure, uh, just let me run and get my computer really quick. I left it upstairs.” I dart out of the office and up to my apartment as quickly as I can, sweating a little by the time I make it back to the room and plug in my ancient laptop into the wall outlet behind my skinny desk. It takes forever to boot up, and I can feel Kodi growing anxious behind me as I load up my software.

As soon as I open it, it informs me it needs to run updates before I can actually use it. I groan.

“I’m sorry, like I said, I wasn’t expecting patients until next week, and I don’t really have myself set up for taking payments just yet. Why don’t we chalk this up to a free consultation and I’ll just charge you normal price next week?”

“No.”

I stare at her. Is she actually denying free medical care right now?

What kind of Reaganomics pipe dream is this?

“What?”

Kodi walks over and plops herself onto the yoga ball, scooting under the desk and helping herself to my booking software. “Ooooh, I see what the problem is. You use the self-hosted version of Medi-Cal? Oof, and on Windows 10? No wonder it’s running updates. You need to get the cloud-based version. Otherwise you’ll never be able to get into this when you need to.”

“The what-hosted?” I watch in disbelief as Kodi somehow bypasses the update lightbox and accesses the settings and preferences of my booking software. Her hands fly across the keyboard, and suddenly she’s so deep in menus I’ve lost track of where she is. “How are you doing that?”

“What, opening preferences?” She looks over her shoulder at me. “How long have you been using Medi-Cal?”

“Uh… I just got it a few weeks ago.”

“And you still haven’t figured out how to change your preferences?” Kodi stares at me expectantly. I shrug.

“Hey, I’m a doctor, not an IT guy. I just got this because it’s what Google said I needed to book my own appointments and take credit cards.”

“Oh boy.” She lets out a breath. “So you’ve never actually used this before?”

I gulp. I do not like the look on her face. “...No?”

She closes her eyes and puts her hands on her lap. When she opens them, she’s looking at me like she would a toddler to whom she’s explaining how blocks work for the first time. “Okay. Let me give you some advice. You’ve got a small practice here, right? It’s just you?”

“Uh, yeah.” The easy feeling I’d had while working on Kodi during our appointment disappears as I feel her unveiling my weakness as a practitioner: the business part.

I went to chiropractic school. Not business school. I was taught how to chart out medical history and diagnoses, but no one explained to us how to organize a calendar or a payment schedule. I figured it couldn’t be that hard (after all, people do it every day in small businesses all across America), but the look on Kodi’s face has me feeling like that was a dumb assumption.

“This is not the version of the software that you want to be using. In fact, you could probably get away with the browser version for now. It’s a monthly fee, but for now it’ll be less expensive than the yearly service and hosting contract on this version. The web version is also way simpler, and I’m getting the impression that you aren’t exactly tech-savvy.” She uses finger quotes around ‘tech-savvy’. I wince. “No offense.”

“None taken,” I say reflexively. Even if it does sting a little to have her call it out. But hey–when the lady’s right, she’s right.

She tilts her head again, only this time she has a different kind of gleam in her eye. The corner of her lip tilts up. “Would you be open to a trade?”

“A trade?” I wrinkle my nose. “What trade?”

“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but this stuff has a bit of a learning curve. Because it’s medicine, and not just a normal small business, there’s a lot more reporting and archiving that you need to do in order to be compliant with HIPAA and the state. It can be really easy to lose track if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“And you don’t think I know what I’m doing,” I say. It isn’t a question.

She pauses. “Not yet, no.”

“I see.”

“But I,” she continues, holding up a finger triumphantly, “just so happen to know what I’m doing. And know what you need to do.”

“How?”

“How do I know?”

“Yeah.” I cross my arms. “I’m not just going to let anybody into my business records and filing systems. How do I know that you know what you’re doing?”

She gestures to the laptop and herself sitting at my desk. “You just let me open your booking software and adjust your preferences.”

“Well…” I fidget uncomfortably, before snapping to my senses. Realizing that I’ve let her walk all over me, I straighten my back and narrow my eyes.

Then I scoop her up from her perch on the yoga ball and deposit her back onto the drop table. She lets out a little squeak when I lift her, and I can’t help but smile a little at her surprise at my strength. Not so high and mighty now, are you? I rearrange my face back into a reprimanding look before I set her down and point my finger in her face. “Stop it.”

She seems to have recovered from being swept off of the yoga ball except for a pink tinge coloring her cheekbones. “I have a degree in hospital administration, okay? We did a whole semester on private practice and the different booking systems.”

She sits up straighter, and puts her hands back onto her hips.

I’m realizing she does that a lot.

She continues, “you need my help to get you set up before you start taking patients. I’m not comfortable letting you give me adjustments for free, but I am okay with bartering professional skills if we’re both benefiting from it. And you, sir,” she pokes my chest to emphasize you, “would seriously benefit.”

“As would you,” I point out.

“As would I.” She nods in agreement and sticks out her hand. “So do we have a deal?”

I look into her warm brown eyes, taking in her serious expression. Her strong brows are drawn down in a confident stare, and her pink lips are resolute. Even in a graduating class full of smart women, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like Kodi Gander. She’s straightforward, intelligent, and aggressive in a way I’m totally unaccustomed to. This is a woman who knows what she wants, and is prepared to advocate for herself to get it. It’s kinda hot.

What? No! Not hot. Impressive.

I must still be off-kilter from the emotional roller coaster of the last few days. I grasp her hand, and we shake on it.

“You have yourself a deal.”