Treating Unregistered Patients

[chrisbauerwrat]

I work in a treatment center. My boss(social worker/director) has implemented a trial. Having some patients stay at the facility after their discharge date, acting as a defacto half way house. 

Problem being is that these guys are “off the books”. Not officially there. Yet I’m passing meds, performing basic nursing duties. We send random drug tests to lab on these guys. 

My question is: What liability am I subject to if something goes wrong with one of these guys. 

[Davey Do]

Wow. This is a heavy-duty situation, chrisbauerwrat. Not a situation that I've specifically run into in my career but has the essence of similar situations.

Often times at Wrongway Regional Medical Center, I would receive verbal mandates from peers, as they were informed by administrators, on how certain nursing responsibilities were to be handled. If I disagreed with the newly instituted mandates- say outside of my education, experience or practice- I asked if the procedure was documented anywhere. If the answer was no, then I'd reply, "It's hearsay and I will continue as I have always done".

I felt comfortable and believed in my tact, which would either force administration's hand to document the procedure or leave me alone to practice my skills according to the aforementioned standards.

If administration went outside of the realms of appropriate procedures, I would objectively document the facts, informing and following the chain of command within the organization. Then, if I received no viable response, I would go outside of the organization and inform accrediting and benefitting agencies such as JAHCO, OSHA, Public Health, Medicare, and Medicaid.

In 2020, a Wrongway employee breached the Code of Conduct, and acted on a misinterpretation of P&Ps and state laws & statutes. I followed the process as mentioned in the previous paragraph and was terminated for bogus charges.

My first LPN instructor told the class in 1983, "Sometimes you will be fired from your job for doing the right thing".

EVERYTHING must be on the up and up with appropriate documentation, otherwise we have to deal with the ramifications thereof.