Pleural Catheters

[ski-nurse563]

I wonder if anyone can help me understand a process issue. When a patient is discharged from the hospital with a pleural catheter, how do they get their supplies (drainage bottles/bags etc.)? Does the hospital discharge them with supplies? I am asking because I've been told that the home health agencies won't procure/provide drainage bottles for patients because they can't bill for them. Does anyone have any experience with this??

[nurseby07]

It all depends on their insurance, all of my patients have insurance which pays for the supplies as well as the nurses to go out at perform the procedure. I don't know about medicaid, but I would hope they would.

[allele, LPN]

Not sure how it works for private insurance, but if they're medicare we're required to supply them with everything they need, until they're discharged. Then we help set them up to have them delivered to their home.

[jnette, ASN, EMT-I]

Medical supply companies in your area have all the supplies you need.

We just need the docs to fax them an order, and the Supply Co. takes care of the rest.. delivers everything to them. We always ask who their preferred medical supply company is.. if they have a preference. If not, we let them choose one. Really quite simple.

[simpsons5]

Does anyone know if there are other companies besides Denver Biomedical that supplies Pleural catheters?

Who pays for the drainage kits you send the patients home with? Does that get charged to the pt. or the hospital?

Has anyone had a problem getting the pleurx catheters delivered to the pt.'s home in a timely manner? Lately we've had pts. who need to be drained 2 days from d/c, but if they are d/c'd on a Friday and b/c we cannot order the supplies until the pt. is d/c'd, they sometimes are not able to get the supplies over the weekend?

Someone commented that for a pt. who has medicaire, they are required to supply the pt. with what he needs before he is d/c'd. Is this coming from the hospital's budget or from the floor's budget?

I'd appreciate any help.

[HmarieD]

HHA's are required to provide Medicare patients with all non-routine supplies except DME. This would come from the home health agency's budget. if you are hospital based, not sure how budgeting would work. Recent changes make NRS reimburseable but you must have an appropriate ICD-9 code & orders for all supplies. Reimbursement is still minimal & it's easy to go in the red providing supplies.