Tag: In-Home

Hospice Consult

What PCPs Should Know About Asking for a Hospice Consult as a PCP

Posted on by VettersEnt

Once you’ve determined that hospice care might be the best course of treatment for one of your patients, it’s time to formulate a plan to discuss hospice care and arrange for a hospice consult. Making that recommendation can be easier said than done, especially since hospice care has many connotations that go along with it. What do you need to know about hospice care for your patients?

What Is Hospice Care?

Whenever someone is facing a life-limiting illness, the goal of their medical care should be a team-oriented approach to care, pain management, emotional support and spiritual support that is customized to the patient. In surveys, many caregivers and families of terminally ill patients indicate that they would have liked information about hospice care when the diagnosis was labeled as terminal, not later in the process. While communicating this might not be comfortable, you should keep this in mind.

Delivering Bad News

One of the best methods for delivering bad news in the medical field is SPIKES. SPIKES represents a 6-stage process: set up, perception, invitation, knowledge, emotion and summary.

  • Set Up: Choose the right environment for the discussion and ensure medical consensus beforehand.
  • Perception: Ask the patient what they know about the illness and any information they already know. Ask the patient what matters most to them and what their wishes are. You should also ask if the patient has heard of hospice care and what they know about it.
  • Invitation: Ask the patient if it’s okay if you share information about hospice care with them.
  • Knowledge: Provide the patient with information before the hospice consult. Let the patient know that hospice can help them meet their goals of staying at home instead of going to the hospital, pain management and emotional support. Also, let the patient know what hospice care provides.
  • Emotion: Express sympathy for the patient. For example, “I know this isn’t good news to hear,” or “I’m sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this.”
  • Summary: When patients get a lot of information at once, it can be hard for them to process things. At the end of the conversation, ask the patient what they understood. You should also state clearly your recommendation that the patient have a hospice consult so they understand what the next step should be.

Recommending a Hospice Consult

You should determine whether or not a patient is eligible for hospice care. Medicare mandates that patients have a life expectancy of 6 months or less if the illness runs the expected course. You must be able to certify the terminal diagnosis and prognosis or re-certify them. To obtain a hospice consult, you must request it from a hospice service provider. The provider will evaluate the patient, determine eligibility and establish a care plan.

Practice Guidance for Your Practice from Vetters Enterprises

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

Obtaining Approval for Home Visits

Posted on by VettersEnt

While doctors aren’t known for making house calls anymore, there are major advantages to making home visits for primary care. If you are considering making the move from in-office care to home care, the transition might be easier than you think.  

Why is Home Care Needed?

Home health care is still in demand today, despite the model of a doctor visiting the homes of well patients for check-ups and annual physicals seeming antiquated. There is a huge demand for home health care today because:

  • Many adults avoid seeking medical treatment for themselves because they work during traditional doctor’s office hours and cannot take leave for a wellness visit.
  • Some areas of the country don’t have many doctor’s offices, so patients can live in areas without access to regular primary care doctors outside of emergency rooms and urgent care clinics

Getting Started with Home Visits

Insurance companies offer a small degree of flexibility when it comes to primary care doctors visiting patients in their home, but you need to fill out all of the proper paperwork. It is relatively easy to be approved for home healthcare when working with homebound or recovering patients.

Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B will cover in-home healthcare that falls under intermittent skilled nursing care, physical therapy, speech-language pathology services or continued occupational services. The most important variable when justifying home health visits to insurance companies and Medicare is the inability of the patient to access regular medical practices. Apply for approval by contacting individual insurance agencies. Always explain to patients that approval for home healthcare services can depend on whether or not the need can be justified.

Vetters Practice Management Consulting

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, revenue cycle optimization, and private practice business support. We can perform detailed assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

In-Home Doctors: Are They Still Around?

Posted on by VettersEnt

Historically, doctors would make house calls to visit sick patients and elderly patients, in addition to those just needing a check-up unable to trek into the city to get the job done. While these primary care doctors that perform home visits are certainly a dying breed, what are the potential strengths of this model?

Patients Get Care When They Need It

Many people avoid seeking medical treatment because of transportation and timing issues. If the doctor’s office is open from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM and they work during that time and cannot take off, they might skip their annual physical for years. If the patient is a post-partum mother who needs primary care but cannot find a babysitter for the baby or a vehicle to drive to the doctor, important care steps might be missed. Primary care doctors who make home visits often provide care to needy patients when and where they need it.

Everything You Might Need

You might be surprised to learn that primary care doctors making home visits often carry with them everything that they might have in a traditional setting, from a stethoscope to a mobile X-ray machine. Healthcare at home has come a long way in a relatively short period of time, so today’s mobile doctor bag is deeper than ever.

What Is Happening to At-Home Healthcare?

At-home healthcare for non-sick or non-elderly people remains on the decline. Many people have moved from visiting their primary doctors to urgent care facilities when in need. While at-home primary healthcare is on the decline, there is still a great need for on-demand and annual care throughout the country, so there is a chance it might make a comeback.

Vetters Practice Management Consulting

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, revenue cycle optimization, and private practice business support. We can perform detailed assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.