If you think that the programmer has nightmares trying to get a piece of medical billing software to work correctly and the QA tech has headaches trying to test this software under every possible condition, imagine the troubles that the support tech has when he is basically stuck in the middle of this no win battle. In this installment, we're going to show you just what the support tech has to go through on a daily basis.

The biggest problem that the support tech has is that they are basically the last one to find out what the software does and the first line of defense when it comes to taking support calls. This gives them the least amount of time to prepare what is inevitably going to come down the pike. Need an example? Here's a perfect one.

The DME medical billing software company decides to add barcoding to their line of products. So the hardware department makes the barcoding machines that will actually read these barcodes. The printing department makes the labels. They have to be just the right size. The programmers then write the code to make it so that the barcoding machines read the barcodes correctly and print them properly on the labels, lined up just so. The QA tester then tests all of this to make sure it works just right.

After all this is done and it is determined that the product is working as it should, it is then handed over to the support techs so that they can learn how to use it in order to be able to support the product. They really don't have the chance to fully test the product because it needs to go out to the public right away. Besides, it's the QA department's job to make sure the software is working correctly.

Well, the software gets released to the public. Right around this time, another company comes out with a barcode reader. They claim that it will work with any software because it is generic. It turns out that this reader is cheaper than the reader that comes with the DME software. So customers opt to buy the new reader instead. Well, it turns out that the barcode readers can use one of two protocols. Unfortunately, the QA tester and programmer only made and tested this software for the more common protocol and the new reader uses the other protocol. Can you see what's coming down the road?

The support department starts getting bombarded with calls. Customers are complaining that their barcoding module doesn't work with these generic readers that are on the market. Support goes back to QA, who then goes back to programming, where it is discovered that they only programmed the barcoding system for the one protocol. So, programming has to add the second protocol, QA has to test it and then poor support has to get back on the phone with these screaming customers and send them the new software. They're the only ones who didn't screw up but they get all the fury of the customer.

The moral to this is simple. If ever you decide you want to work for a medical billing software company, you might want to think twice about becoming a support tech.