More blankin' paperwork!!!

I attended a meeting yesterday and found out that our wonderful administration has added even more redundant paperwork to our tons we have already. Here is the latest...

We are a small facility who transfers a lot of patients to a bigger facility for cardiac procedures...we fill out a transfer form for the receiving hospital. This form has all the pertinent information for the other facility, such as admission date, current meds, S/S, next of kin and so on. Plus, we copy the chart and send that along. Now our DON wants us to fill out a DISCHARGE sheet, along with the transfer sheet. The discharge sheet is what we give to patients when they are DISCHARGED from our facility, not transferred. To me this is just adding to an overworked nurses (and unit secretary's) paperwork load.

I asked my boss if the nursing administration just sits around and thinks of more BS for us to do.... And how about asking the nurses who work the floor everyday before enacting a bunch of new stupid regulations. Maybe when nurses are stopped being treated like kindergartners and actually given a chance to participate in decision making, maybe then the nursing shortage will ease, but I wouldn't bet on it.....

[Q.]

I don't see why you'd have to fill out a discharge sheet, unless it's for billing purposes. I would think the transfer sheet would be sufficient. I don't know.

Perhaps yes, if nurses were more involved in decision making or at least informed of the "why" behind alot of this, it would make more sense and might even help you remember to do it.

[sjoe]

If you think you know what paperwork is, try home health care sometime.

And yes, you are right, much of nursing admin sits around and thinks of more things you can do to protect ITs behind in even the most unlikely circumstances.

With that said, I have never worked in an accredited facility where we didn't have to complete discharge paperwork on everyone who left (though in two non-accredited ones, we didn't).

[whipping girl in 07, RN]

We have to fill out a discharge form whenever a patient leaves our facility (well, I usually don't, since I work in ICU and we don't discharge patients directly from the unit and we don't transfer many either). If they are discharged, tranferred, even if they expired, we have to have that piece of paper, CORRECTLY FILLED OUT, on the medical record.

Our hospital got audited several years ago and we had 37 charts that did not have the correct thing checked off on the discharge form (like the patient was going to a nursing home or SNF, or was going to be getting home health). We got fined several hundred thousand dollars because we had filed FRAUDULENT Medicare claims. And so for two more years, we get to sit through an hour session of corporate compliance training each fall as punishment. I'm sure the people who screwed up the form don't even work there anymore; they probably didn't know that the patient wasn't being discharged to home and it was an honest mistake. That's why when I hear that a hospital has been accused of making fraudulent Medicare claims, I have to hear exactly what they allegedly did, since to me, a fraudulent claim would be one that is made purposefully. JMO.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

If our administration comes to me with one more form I think I'll scream. It's gotten crazy lately with all the forms to fill out so we don't get sued and so we pass JACHO.

[deespoohbear]

We have a seperate paper for when a person is transferred to a nursing home, or skilled nursing. This form comes in triplicate and has to be signed by the physician before the other agency can accept them. Our patients who are discharged HOME (even those with home health care) get our standard discharge sheet that explains the meds, follow-up visits, labs, diet orders, activity orders, their weight at discharge and a few other things. If we give a discharge sheet to our patients who are transferred to larger facilities that will just be using up more of our time for something useless. Because once these patients are transferred to a CCU and have their cardiac cath or whatever procedure they are having, their meds and such are going to be almost completely different than when we transferred. So, we will spend time reviewing medications with the patient which they probably won't end up on anyway after their dismissal...let's just comfuse the public more..