Home Health & Hospice Week

Be sure your communication with both referring physicians and patients is strong, or you may find yourself facing public embarrassment — and worse.

A Gentiva Health Services Inc. location in Little Rock, Ark., is learning that lesson the hard way. In a story titled "Woman Blames Home Health Care Company for Mother’s Painful Death," Lisa Dietz says her mother screamed in pain at home while dying of lung cancer while Gentiva shuffled her between hospice and home health care so the doctor could run tests, reports KARK 4 News.

Dietz told the news station she called the company over and over again to find out what was going on but kept getting the run-around. Mean-while, her mother had to go eight days with no pain medication except pills — which she couldn’t swallow — until she died.

Dietz has filed a complaint with the state survey agency, she said.

Gentiva Health Services responded, "Res-pect for patient privacy and health care privacy laws limit what we can say with regard to individual cases," according to KARK 4 News. "But, it would be important to let KARK-TV viewers know that we were actively working to secure the necessary medical orders in the case you inquired about. Our sympathies and prayers go out to the patient’s family."