Home Care Nursing Options???

[bleedingpurple]

I am an LPN caring for a child in Minnesota. The Child has had several home agencies over the past few years. Family is not happy with most agencies as they feel the agencies are more 'intrusive." They like the nurses though.

Mother is questioning me on how she would go about providing care for her daughter without having an agency. She is sick of the state paying gross amounts to the agencies and she believes there is a way that nurses can work for her daughter and get paid directly from the state and avoid the middle man. I have tried to research this on the net but I am not finding much. Does anyone here do homecare nursing or know how agencies can be bi passed?

Thanks

[caliotter3]

I once worked for a client where the insurance company decided to cut out the agency as middle man. They paid the nurses directly, but unfortunately, did not see fit to pass along any of the cost savings in the form of a pay increase. The mother would have to develop quite a working relationship with the payor in order to get them to go through the trouble of dealing with independent nurses. I would suggest as a first step to get the nurses to get their independent provider paperwork together. Have no experience in this area. You can read through threads in the home health, private duty, or agency forums, for info on how this is done. If the nurses are ready to go, it would be easier to get the payor to cooperate. Just a thought.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Unfortunately, the way the world works is ... if you're not paying the bill, you don't get to call the shots. Clearly the daughter is receiving some type of disability/state-supported health care coverage ... and so as a condition of receiving those benefits, the state agencies providing care are using whatever methods to provide/verify appropriate care that the mother finds "intrusive". Documentation/verification requirements are often mandated by law.

I have no opinion on whether her concern about "intrusiveness" is justified, and that is really not the issue. If the mother wants to remove her daughter from the state-supported care structure she is offered, then she is going to have to pay out of pocket for it. She is certainly entitled to do so.