Home Health RN Question

[cshelly12]

I am fairly new to home health and was wondering if anyone else has this problem I am about to mention, or if there is something I am missing. Sometimes, when I need to call a physician about one of my patients, I am not sure who is the actual physician following the patient, and signing the plan of care, therefore, the one I need to call. With new admissions it confuses me because most patients have just been discharged from the hospital, so the ordering physician, of course, is no longer following them. So is it always the primary care physician who I would call?

[ArtClassRN, ADN, RN]

Your supervisor should be able to help you with this.

[vampiregirl, BSN, RN]

When I admitted a patient to home care, I called the patient's primary provider to notify them that the patient had been admitted to home care. I also reviewed or faxed the discharge orders to them, their preference. That seemed to streamline things when I needed to obtain additional orders or clarifications.

[caliotter3]

Once they are discharged, it is usually the PCP you will deal with. I asked my supervisor one time about post-hospitalization discharge orders. She said to clarify them with the doctor that ordered them, but if run of the mill orders, just go with the PCP. I will also write both doctor's names with two slashes between them if I send the written order to the ofc without calling a doctor first. That way the ofc nurse can get either to sign off.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

It depends. For the majority of my patients, I'm dealing with the Oncologist not the PCP. Some of your patients may have multiple specialist and you may be dealing with several different MDs, depending on what is going on with them. I have one patient whose PCP signs her 485 but when I communicate with the MD about her BPs, I communicate with the Nephrologist since she's the one who manages her antihypertensives.

[tinker_bel06]

If at all posssible, before accepting the patient, the agency can request from referral source: which MD will patient be f/u with and will that MD agree to sign orders? This only happens in a *perfect world.* No all PCPs/MDs are willing to sign orders and most don't know what qualifies a patient for home health if they are Medicare patients.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

You call whoever signed the POC unless told otherwise