inpatient vs er transfer forms

[pkapple]

Our admin just presented a new form-multiple pages- that we are to use to transfer a patient from our CAH to a certain tertiary facility. I have used a very similar form for inpatient transfers while working at other facilities; you know the one where you agree to accept the patient back after procedure or specialist tx, and transferring facility pays for back transfer etc.

I can't believe an ER to ER transfer for say a surgical evaluation or stroke eval, not to mention trauma would require such a contractual form. Our facility would not be able to care for these patients post procedure, especially since they would have no attendng at ths facilty(ER Doc is not an attending/admitting ). Besides as a CAH we only do 96 hour inpatient stays-well theoretically anyway.

Have any of you experienced this as either transfering or receiving faclity??

We currently use a one page EMTALA transfer form where the MD contacts accepting ER Md and nurse gives report, patient signs consent etc.

thanks

[TazziRN, RN]

Before we had ortho here we had to transfer out all ortho pts. We had to agree, no matter how bad the case, to take the pt back after surgery. The rationale was that an ortho was needed to fix the problem but not to maintain the fix.