Please make me understand the following (based on my experience as an admin for a home health):
-Sometimes is takes a month or even two months to get home health documentation from a field nurse
-The documentation is missing critical info or poorly chosen interventions resulting in office staff having to redo lot of the paperwork
I understand that home health nurses are swamped with paperwork. Yet, it makes NO SENSE to put off paperwork for a month or two when it will be even more time consuming to try to figure out what was done during home visit. It would appear that the most effective and fastest way to do this isduring pt visit or right after while all info is still fresh. This would likely reduce many errors in documentation.
- Submitting late paperwork is very unprofessional, irresponsible, and potentially dangerous. I thought that nurses, in general, are very professional and responsible. Am I wrong to assume such a thing?
I am really just looking for a way to get nurses to submit paperwork on time. What can I do or say to make that happen? It does not seem that paying extra money will do the trick since they do not care to get paid for a few months anyways ....
Finally, I was told this is how things are in homehealth and have always been so (chronically late paperwork & poor documentation). I refuse to believe that this is how it should be. There really must be an alternative because since when should we accept mediocrity and half done jobs?
I worked as a home care nurse for a medically fragile child for about a year. This child had RN care--no aides--for approximately 12 hours a day. There was a brand new nurse, straight out of school, and her only professional job was working for this child. Her documentation (lack there of) drove me crazy! I'd find out more about what was going on from the school (as we attended with him) than I would from the nurse. According to her, everything was always fine.
As an example: "O2 sats stable this shift, except when the probe wasn't working right." Um, ????? No comments on changing the probe, contacting the company that provides the medical equipment, and no comment on how the client actually appeared during the time that the "probe wasn't working right." Left me with some fun CYA the next day.
I discussed the situation with our agency, specifically citing her need for help with documentation and nothing was ever done :-(
I am not sure how everyone else does things, but here it is up to the client to contact the DME to replace faulty equipment. The nurses do not do this, do not have access to the DME and it is fruitless to contact the agency and report it because nothing is done from that end. I know because I have tried. Some of the parents find it very frustrating to deal with an indifferent DME. The best they can do is to ask for a different company to supply equipment. Medicaid and Medicare patients do not have a lot of choices.
I am really just looking for a way to get nurses to submit paperwork on time. What can I do or say to make that happen? It does not seem that paying extra money will do the trick since they do not care to get paid for a few months anyways ....
I am amazed that there is someone out there working as a nurse for nothing because they don't care if they get paid. Are they running a charitable service? I find this very hard to believe. Unless it was someone who worked one night never to return, that is the only way I could imagine something like this happening.
The turning in of paperwork in our agency is mandatory if the nurse wants to get paid. No paperwork - no pay. If the paperwork is not filled in correctly, one has to go back and fill it in correctly or no pay. Now, my agency has given me a courtesy call several times so that I will come back and fill in the paperwork properly. One time it was just that as a night shift nurse, I put the date in like this: 9/26-27/2010. It has to be the date you started working, 9/26/2010, even though that consists of one hour of your time.
I work for a Medicare based agency in Dallas, TX. My employer still would want to continue with paper documentation only, which makes it a lot difficult to turn the assessment in 24 hour time frame. For the most part, we do it in 48 hours. But, having a software for documentation could make it a little easier. I wonder, if still there are any agencies around working on paper documentation, other than the one I work for. One of my colleagues mentioned that there still is a significant portion of home health agencies, around the nation, that still do paper documentation. Is that right?
Mummy1991 This is a bit of an old post you are on from 2010 (an interesting one though) but I am per diem for an agency and they use paper documentation still in 2017. I write it while in the patient's home and consider it part of the visit because it is. We leave one copy there in a confidential file. So it is not really possible to be doing documentation later. I write far slower than I type. The whole thing has been a challenge. I cannot imagine anyone is going to stay on paper for much longer. We do have a secure electronic transfer method for the paper copy we take away from the patient/client's home.
My real concern is always if I do not have my documentation in ASAP, complete and accurate and something goes wrong, particularly in home care, what are the consequences for that patient?
Luv2care0907
154 Posts
I am not sure how everyone else does things, but here it is up to the client to contact the DME to replace faulty equipment. The nurses do not do this, do not have access to the DME and it is fruitless to contact the agency and report it because nothing is done from that end. I know because I have tried. Some of the parents find it very frustrating to deal with an indifferent DME. The best they can do is to ask for a different company to supply equipment. Medicaid and Medicare patients do not have a lot of choices.