AFTER YOUR SURGERY - WHERE SHOULD YOU GO ?

Checking into a hospital for some kind of surgery is traumatic enough… then, a day before discharge your doctor recommends going to a skilled nursing facility (we used to call them nursing homes or rehabilitation centers) for two or three weeks of extended treatment…AND … You have until the end of the day to choose where to go!!!  Yikes!!!

Where should you go?  What are they going to do? Is your doctor going to check on you while you’re there?  Double-Yikes!!!!

As you take a few deep breathes and gather some inner strength from your spouse and family… you begin to peruse the “resource list” of skilled nursing facilities that was provided by the hospital case manager.  In large towns, the list is often a small font, single spaced and a page or more in length.  The “resource list” includes the one or two places you’ve driven by…ten or fifteen that you’ve never heard of… and another twenty that aren’t even in your town.

Now…over the next few hours, you interrogate anyone with a colored uniform of some kind …for their opinion on where you should go for your extended treatment.  The most common response is a non-response “…It’s your choice…There are many good places to choose from…!”

You see, hospitals are not supposed to actually recommend outside services.  A few years back, hospitals were taken to task by Medicare and medical practice laws called Stark Laws for allowing hospitals or physicians to steer patients to other services providers that they had a financial interest in.  Sooooooo, in an effort to avoid legal problems … hospitals stopped recommending…and created “The Resource List”… which, without any background knowledge, is simply a phone book.

Questions that your hospital case manager can answer, include;

1. 
   Which facility has a history of good treatment results
   for my particular diagnosis? (Some places may be great with joints and
   fractures, but not so great with respiratory or cardiac care).
2. 
   Which facility does my doctor go to, or has a
   member of their practice go to?
3. 
   Which facility has the best rating by the State
   of Illinois? (The state has a ranking system that is available on-line…and your
   Case Manager can get that information for you.)

Remember, choosing a facility just because it’s close to your home…or attached to your retirement building… doesn’t mean it’s a good medical choice for your needs.  Today’s medical world is requiring patients to be more actively involved… but often the patient tools are difficult to find, and harder to understand. 

Keep moving!

Mike

www.FallPreventionClinics.com