Trying to work around closing a dr scheduled day

by Kerry
(Oregon)

My boss and then the adjudicator said I was fired for willful misconduct. I was a master scheduler for an orthodontic practice. When my supervisor, that I saw maybe every 10 days, saw that the day was light, she ordered me to close the day and reschedule all patients in order to save labor costs. She told me to tell all pts that there has been a change in the schedule and that the dr can see them at x time on x date. X time and x date were very inconvenient for most of the patients that day, as these appointments had been scheduled at least 7 weeks in advance.

Several times I tried to get around it, because a practice revolves around the patients, not vice versa. I was ordered to call all patients, lie to them, and re-schedule them for times inconvenient to them, because their promised appointment times on other days were all taken up. The cornerstone of our practice, even in our employee handbook, was out patients and treating them the best possible way with the highest quality care.

So I queried this order to my supervisor several times, telling her how it was going to look to patients, how they would feel, and what I was certain I was going to hear from them. Then our dr (this was a corporate practice) asked ME to ask the supervisor if we could just do a half day and see the patients that were going to be hard to reschedule. I asked my supervisor, and she said no and put someone else on the rescheduling. A week later, I was fired. I was given no warning for my "behavior", no suspension, nothing. Just fired.

I made $16 an hour. The person that replaced me is paid $14, and the person that replaced her, $11.

My employer, and the adjudicator, after hearing my story, said this was willful misconduct. However, I was entrusted, when I was hired, to fill our schedules and take the best possible care of patients. This was my third supervisor, all others had quit their jobs, and I remained on this job for a year and a half. My own supervisor did not know my job. Her job was to watch the bottom line. My job was to get in more patients and see that they were well cared for.


Hi Kerry,

I've gotta be missing something because I don't see any misconduct. What does the determination say? What exactly was the misconduct?. Had you ever received any warnings in the past?

I'm also wondering why it took a week to fire you...

Get your appeal filed.



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