Physician Home Visits – Case Report
The daughter of a 96 year old female was asked to call me by her mother's physician because she was not well enough to go to the doctor's office. The patient had recently been discharged from the hospital for treatment of congestive heart failure and hypertension (high blood pressure).
Though I shared several suggestions about medication management for her heart failure and blood pressure, the daughter appreciated the most my suggestion to go on hospice. Though her mother was not actively dying, she did meet criteria for hospice, and hospice would provide the much needed home health aid once Medicare stopped home care services. The daughter was educated on the services and duration of services hospice would provide in the home, the symptoms to emphasize so the hospice agency would accept the patient, the name and telephone number of the hospice, and the guidance not to agree to start hospice until the hospice agency was sure they had a home health aid ready to start.
The patient was accepted to hospice, but since a home health aid was not immediately available, the patient remained on the Medicare home care service until the hospice aid could start.
