Housecall (part 2)

knock knock, who's there?

Housecall! You're home and ready for home health care physical therapy. WAIT!

You taught your children and grandchildren to never talk to strangers - now it's your turn.

Home Health Care is just that - professionals coming to your house, knocking on your door. Make sure they are who they say they are.

Medicare (and many insurance company's) will not pay for Home Health Care unless they have a doctor's order prescribing the services. This said, home health agencies will not be making any housecalls until they FIRST have an order to do so.

Sometimes in the scurry of things, the patient is not informed that these details were initiated, or you may forget. That can lead to fraud, abuse and confusion. You need to know who is making a housecall to your home. Are they really who they say they are?

Let's find out how it all works...

Three of the most common ways that the Home Care (HC) ball gets rolling are:

• You visit the doctor and discuss HC, he faxes and order to a Home Health Agency (HHA) of your choice. The HHA then calls you to introduce themselves and to set up a time to start home care.
• You are sent home from the hospital in need of home care and the doctor writes an order that the hospital then faxes to a HHA to get the home care ball rolling
• Or, you feel you need home care services so you call a HHA to discuss your needs. The HHA then discusses your needs with your doctor. If you doctor is in agreement he will write a home care order and fax it to the HHA. They then call you to discuss a good time to start.

To start with, any legitimate home health care company will call you ahead of time and let you know not only THAT they are coming but WHEN they are coming. The nature of home health care does not always allow an exact arrival time so don’t expect that. But you should expect a ball park time i.e. between 2pm and 4pm.

You need to ask questions when they arrive at your door. Sometimes a home care agency will try several times to call and schedule an appointment with you. If you do not answer the phone, and we can not get a hold of an alternate contact, we may do a drive by courtesy call to make sure that you are, indeed, safe.

Occasionally we will just "show up." That may seem rude but here are some reasons why we would:

• We were told you would be home on a certain date but we can't get a hold of you via phone
• We were given the wrong phone number and can't reach you
• We were given the address of perhaps a friends home where you are staying but your own home phone number

These are rare but they do happen (and more and more often).

Sometimes patients come home and fall or have complications that leave them unable to contact help. The reason we just show up or do a "drive by" is to make sure that you are OK.

At any rate, when someone shows up at your door claiming to be from a home health agency ask them a few questions first…

part 1 - safety in your home
part 3 - who's behind your housecall?