A way to up your odds of not landing back in the hospital
If you’ve ever experienced a hospital stay, you know that the best part is when they release you to go home.
But it usually goes something like this: You get wheeled out armed with pages of instructions on what to do, bags of supplies and drugs, and a “goodbye and good luck” from the nurses.
After that, you’re on your own! That is, unless you can get a professional to help you recover once you’re discharged.
You’d think most patients would welcome the opportunity to not fly solo during this trying, but a new study has revealed that’s often not the case — and, many times, for all the wrong reasons.
Yet this kind of care may be exactly what you need to keep from landing back in the hospital again.
In a new report aptly titled I Can Take Care of Myself!, researchers took a look at why offers of home health care are frequently refused.
Unfortunately, many seniors mistakenly think home health care is a threat to their independence. And with the variety of “care” services available, such as “homecare” and “homemaker services,” it’s easy to see how confusing it can be.
But it really shouldn’t be. Because the bottom line is that a health professional who comes to your home after you’ve been hospitalized won’t be helping you do all the things you can do for yourself, like get dressed, shower, or cook.
Instead, these visiting nurses basically give you the same kind of attention you would receive in a doctor’s office, only without having to leave home. And all the services — such as checking your vital signs, double-checking any medications, and making sure that wounds are healing — are under the orders and supervision of your doctor.
Showing just how extensive the problem is, the report cites a study by Dr. Kathryn Bowles of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York that found practically 30 percent of a sampling of eligible patients flat-out turned down those services.
Although you might expect that most patients would be concerned about the cost (more on that in a second), financial concerns were only part of the story. Patients in the study said that they were also afraid of “losing control,” and they wanted to retain their privacy.
But it turns out that those who rejected such care — and ended up relying on family members instead — were actually doubling their risk of being readmitted to the hospital within 30 to 60 days, compared to the patients who accepted it.
And once you’ve been in, you want to do anything to stay out of the hospital!
As for the cost, home health care is, for the most part, covered by Medicare (as long as the visiting nurse organization you select is certified). But, as you probably guessed, anything involving the federal government has a number of hoops you need to jump through.
In this case, those hoops include:
- You must be under a doctor’s supervision with a “plan of care.”
- Your doctor must sign off on the fact that he feels you need nursing care or physical therapy.
- You need to be considered “homebound.” That doesn’t mean that you can never leave the house, just that you need a cane, walker, wheelchair, or crutches to do so due to your illness or injury — or it means that your doctor doesn’t recommend you leave home due to whatever it is you’re recovering from.
Now, whether you’re given the option for home health care when you’re being discharged from the hospital is another confusion this report found. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind who’s offered the services and who isn’t.
So, if you or a loved one could benefit from this kind of care, and it isn’t mentioned, you may want to ask for it.
Because there’s nothing more important than getting a little help when it’s needed the most.
“Why confusion leads seniors to turn down home health care” Judith Graham, June 23, 2017, CNN, cnn.com
