She is 75 and was in the hospital for 3 weeks recovering from a UTI, C-DIFF, kidney failure, and fluid buildup around her lung because of her kidneys. She just needs rehab to regain her strength so she can go back home. Both of my parents are 75 and have no problems living on their own. She has been in her current facility for one week and the care she has received has been sub par at best. To add insult to injury, the doctor listed as her doctor on her chart there, is not her personal physician, but the one over the facility as well as others. He has YET to personally see Mom and that is unacceptable. What are our options? Daddy can't seem to get anyone at the facility to answer any of his questions. :(
First, Start researching, inspecting and interviewing staff at other facilities.
Second, when you've found an acceptable facility, speak to either the scripting doctor or someone on his/her staff and explain the situation. Ask if he/she will script for a different rehab facility.
This is the advice I was given when I had to move my father from one SNF to another, a better one. The staff told me that Medicare might question payment for the second facility w/o a script, b/c of the transfer. I had the doctor's letter, made the transfer, and Medicare never questioned it. The second facility's care was covered.
In my experience, an individual's personal doctor is rarely the treating doctor at a SNF. Typically, SNF doctors have their own practices, which can include a SNF, and they're the ones who see patients. There was only one time out of more than half a dozen rehab stints that the rounding rehab doctor was also the attending doctor at the hospital.
Sometimes the rehab doctors didn't treat patients outside of the rehab facility; they were strictly facility doctors.
If you need suggestions on what to look for in a different facility, post back and the advice can expand to what considerations are.
My biggest mistake, which required a transfer, was failing to ask what the staff/patient ratio was, and learning on the first day that it was unsatisfactory. There were major problems after dinner when aides were severely limited (and understaffed) and many patients didn't get toileting assistance.
Besides that, the food was inedible. It had been frozen, thawed, apparently for some time, and couldn't really even be called food. The fish was more like drywall and the brownie was too hard to bite. Seriously!
In addition, the staff lost my father's chart, and I learned after going to a better facility that the staff hadn't been administering Warfarin. My father was close to the level of internal hemorrhaging.
Do you have a copy of the hospital's discharge instructions? If not, get them from the medical records department so you can check to make sure the current rehab facility is administering the correct drugs, and that the substitute one also does. I've found that the hospital we used to go to made at least one error in each discharge instruction, and one of them was a very big error.
Good luck to you in finding a more suitable place.
of taking care of both Mom and Dad...After my brother caretaker passed, I was bereft and Dad was very confusedwith some dementia looking for his caretaker...…….
so I would go everyday to NH to see him actually being relieved that Dad was no longer in the house while I had to plan a Funeral and straighten things out due to no will,"DNR,or POA, but I quickly sorted these things...Funerals are very expensive...last thing on your mind is the anger that surfaces when all these things concurrently happen..anyway I did go to the NH everyday which was good for me as I found it lessened the sadness for the loss of my brother but in the interim I never considered MISTAKES which make you paranoid...but as I see it one must stay ontop of all medications,diaper changescausing UTI,and my statement here is for my deceased brother and Father who died after five months in NH...…………………….DOES ANYONE EVER READ THE COMPUTOR RECORDS FOR A PATIENT...…THE DOCTORS....OR DO THEY DECIDE AFTER
A STINT IN REHAB FROM HOSPITAL TO ELIMINATE DRUGS......SHARING OF INFORMATION IS ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL IF INSTRUCTIONS ARE FOLLOWED ..IN MY CASE A DISCUSSION WITH THE DOCTOR AT THE FACILITY REVEALED THAT MY DAD WAS JUST TAKEN OFF THIS MED,THAT MED,THEY SAID SOMETHING LIKE WE DONT GIVE ELDERS THIS MED. DUE TO AGE ONE WAS A DIABETES DRUG...THE OTHER AN ULCER COMMON
DRUG PRILOCEC WELL TWOMONTHS IN WHILE PAYING DUE TO NO SUPPLEMENT FOR THIS BABYSITTING,DIaPER CHANGING SMALL BED SHARE ROOM...…..WAS TURNING INTO QUITE A BIT OF MONEY WHILE MY DETECTIVE WORK WAS SEEING MANY THINGS...………..TOO MANY...YOU CAN PRECIPITATE DEATH IN THESE PLACES...…………...I WAS BAFFELED CAUSE I THOUGHT THEY NEEDED THE BUSINESS...…….DADS 1800 PERMONTH PENSION WITH SOC, WAS A LOSS FOR ME AT HOME BUT LOOKING BACK suddenly dad went downhill perhaps a uti,one is always trying to figure out dementia,or uti....…..u cant get tDad out unless u make the appt with his family doc the other NH docs take over and u better watch them...dad was on a new heart drug never before in 97yrs, being put on, I suspect in the hospital ..……...I did not think of taking him to his doc at the veterans
adm. to get a second opinion...…….so this is the end of my story but more important I found that my brothers death at 69yrs old,Dads caretaker was even more suspicious...…………………..yes going beck to recordkeeping from his death
in emergency brainsurgery………...in one day he was in a coma and paralyzed...…….
that no Doctor would speak with me other than obtaining records from the Hospital as well as the other three baffeled Doctors his GP did not even know where my brother had DIED!!!!this after knowing him for 20 years and taking care of my Mother withseeing my brother with her...SOMEBODY BETTER GET THE RECORD SHARING THING TOGETHER OR THE HOSPITALISTS TAKE OVER WHEN U GO TO THE HOSPITAL......SO WHO IS AT FAULT....WHEN MISDIAGNOSING???NO SHARE OF INFOMATION,DESEASE THAT IS IN THE BRAIN WHICH CAN CAUSE PARALYSIS,NO ONE WILL EXPLAIN SO YOUHAD BETTER HAVE THREE EYES OPEN...………………………...double check the meds being given...…….low staff ratio,dehydration…………...etc. in NH....
The desease that killed my brother, was evidenced one year prior...in headaches,he had brain absesses...…..first visit was to his
GP the man who midiagnosed him with headaches, giving him muscle relaxers thinking he was a STRESSED CARETAKER!!!!well do your work doctors be the detective for the living...…...also hospital should have transferred my Brain Deseased nine absesses brother to the University hospital
five minutes away...……..but there was no time..the better neurosurgeons were at the teaching university hospital and the Doctor that operated was not a specialist in brain surg..QUESTION!
sign on the wall saying we do not give antibiotics..given current trend from ama...also no blood culture done...five mos in next visit to ENT...with severe
sinus headaches...no antibiotics six months in...next pulmonary spec. two weeks simple antibiotics this after ten mos initial visit to GP....twelve mos
copd and first broncosopy....then second brococopy eight days later
death after being readmitted to same hospital in emergency...……….brain absesses....Bacterial Infection...…..probably with Pneumonia....Meningitis.
Would my brother be alive if infectious desease specialist did a blood culture, or GP had given antibiotics???we will never know...
should have been kept at hospital after second bronc. and put on intense antibiotics......and liquid food, he was 99lbs when he died and cachectic when being admitted to emergency...brother looked terrible after coming home..
only doc who phoned me was his dentist who informed me that brother had periodontal desease one year prior and had been put on antibiotics.
so here we are with Neurosurgeon simply saying well one can get these absesses by snorting water in a bacteria laden lake up his nose...…….so I asked how long do absesses take to appear in an MRI or Blood he said they can take 14 days to start. Imagine that!!!!also due to my detective work a ct scan of chest was done ten mos in by the pulmonary doc, who was referred by the GP after 10 months of headaches...…...you would be skinny and look sickly too ENT recommended go home and buy Flonase.
would anyone care to reply?
I agree with Athena concerning no one at these facilities consulting with the patient's PCP. I have recommended it but have been told they r in charge and I can see the PCP after discharge. Really, he knew my Mom you don't. I had one NP say that a dye test should be done on Mom but they need to check her kidneys. Really, she only has one and that works half capacity and like athena said, if they checked their records, she had the operation there and a doctor to consult with. I have given the hospital names of all Moms doctors, 3 had privileges at the hospital. TG I was told they were bringing in a consult. I asked who, not Moms doctor. I asked why since I gave them a paper with Moms doctor on it and he had privileges.
Do what you need to do to protect your loved one.