Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Remind them home care can keep them out of the hospital, nursing home.

Missed visits are creating a LUPA crisis, and your most crucial tool to battle them is education.

Many patients are refusing visits under COVID-19. “I have clients that have had large numbers of patients tell them they want to suspend services until the pandemic passes,” relates attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Hall Render.

You may be able to bring patients around by explaining to them all the careful measures you and your staff are taking. “Have management reassure the patients on the infection control steps you have put into place,” suggests consultant J’non Griffin, owner of Home Health Solutions in Carbon Hill, Alabama.

Inform patients of your efforts. “This may include requiring staff to check their temperature before reporting for work and not allowing staff to report to work with a temperature; requiring staff who exhibit any symptoms of COVID-19 to call into work sick; issuing masks to staff; and other practices,” Markette says.

Try to explain to patients, “you are more safe when encountering a home health clinician in your home than you are in any other circumstance,” suggests consultant Pam Warmack with Clinic Connections in Ruston, Louisiana. “The clinician’s strict compliance to infection control principles and use of PPE should offer a sense of security to patients.”

You can also point out to patients that a missed home health visit now may put them on track for an ER, hospital, or nursing home stay later, says Cindy Krafft with Kornetti & Krafft Health Care Solutions. Explain “how home care can help keep them out of the hospital or nursing home where infection risks can be much higher,” she urges.

Tell patients how you are using telehealth visits to limit exposure as much as possible, and how you’ll keep in touch with them between in-person visits. “Make daily phone calls to patients to ensure their safety and wellbeing,” Warmack advises. “Keeping patients in the loop and continually aware of what is happening with their home care episode should be helpful when patients begin to allow visits to resume.”

Plus: “We also found that asking nurses with whom the patients had an established relationship was more effective than having an office nurse make all the calls,” Warmack relates.

Don’t forget staff: If staff shortages are the reason you can’t make visits, make sure you are educating them as well. “They need to be reminded how diseases like COVID-19 spread and how following the HHA’s infection control policies will help to prevent that,” Markette recommends. “They may need to be trained on use of PPE and reminded of the importance of hand washing, sanitizer use, barriers, etc.,” he adds.

Bonus: Such training “provides two benefits,” Markette highlights. It will “put staff at ease so that they will be more inclined to perform home health visits and [will] better prepare for infection control-focused surveys.”