Home Health PT/INR Orders

[GJohn]

Greetings! I am an administrator of a home health agency and involved in an interesting discussion, and I could use your advice!

If you receive orders from a physician to perform PT/INR's in home on your patient and report the results back to the PT/INR clinic 1w6. Each week you fax the results into the PT/INR clinic and based on the physician that has already seen the patient and determined the patients coumadin dosage vs his/her PT/INR levels, the nurse who works for the physician sends you an order back to adjust the med.

Do you accept the order and carry out the med change?

If yes, is there any documentation to back it up?

[caliotter3]

Why wouldn't the faxed order received by your agency be sufficient in addition to copies of the info your agency faxed to the doctor's office? If you do not want to accept the order, then a call to that office stating you want something signed by the doctor would be in order. You might want to pose your question in the home health forum for responses.