Home Health Qualifications with Chris Strand

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

This is a special presentation of answers for elders with carriage and welcome to back to answers for elders radio. I am here with Chris Strand from carriage home health and we are here talking about home health and why that is important for families. Here today, Chris, welcome to the program thank you, Suzanne. Chris, one of the things that we’ve talked about in a previous interview was talking about, you know, it’s home health is available for families in for me, understanding really the vast amount of resources that it can offer families. I think is really people don’t understand what all the things that home health can provide and in most cases it’s paid for by insurance and Medicare. So the Nice thing about it for a family is is through your doctor you can actually voice concerns maybe about mom or dad needing some help, and Chris is here to talk a little bit about what that process is like. And so, Chris, thanks again for being here. Tell me a little bit about what the process is about home health. Well, home health is a benefit not just for our parents but for ourselves. It’s an insurance benefit, it’s also a medicare benefit. So home health encompasses physical therapy, nursing, occupational therapy, speech therapy, social work and debating assistant. So those services are available for people just by asking. Now there is certain criteria to be able to obtain this service. People have to be homebound to have home help. So this is a medical rehabilitative intervention at home. So we’re not talking home care where people have somebody assisting on with meals and vacuuming, etc. Or errands. This is physical therapy in the home to help somebody regain the strength that they may have lost. Maybe a patient recently had the flu, which is going around right now. Been Time and they’ve lost some strength, right, and so it behooves a family member or even the patients themselves to call their physician. Can I have orders for home health, and then either the physician would call a home health agency to contact the patient or your mother to come into the home. But at least it would be physical therapy, possibly righte times a week. So well, and I think one of the things that’s really important about this for our families that are listening here today is to understand that home health is number one. It’s it has to go through your doctor, but if your doctor qualifies you to write an order it, Medicare will pay for it and the doctor will determine many things that can happen. And one of the things I think is really interesting what you’re talking about. Somebody’s recovering from the flu their week. Oftentimes they don’t have then the energy that they had before. They might feel wobbly, you know, when it comes to walking or you know it, and they might not feel a hundred percent. To have a registered nurse or an LPN to come into your home help you so that you have a little bit of help in maybe it’s helping to walk, to gain your strength back, you know, maybe it’s just to have a little bit of temporary care in the fact of medications and different things like that. You guys will will, you can unlike what a home care provider can do. They’re going to remind you to take your medication, but they can administer it where home health agency can actually help with that. Isn’t that correct? There’s there’s certain criteria that make a person eligible for home health. The first one is in need a skilled right. So we’re talking a registered nurse who can assist people in managing a new medication regiment. Maybe it’s a new diagnosis they need to manage right. Another qualification for home health is you have to be homebound. So it’s not easily for you to leave the home. It doesn’t mean you’re confined to the home permanently. No, you’re able to go and have your hair done, you can go to religious activities, you can go to special events, HMM, and doctor’s appointments. But what homebound means is it’s difficult and taxing leaving the home. So you have to have a skilled need, you have to be homebound and you have to have doctor’s orders. Now, sometimes we received just doctor’s orders. When a patient does go in to see their physician, let’s say because their wobbly, now we call the insurance right away or Medicare to verify insurance coverage right and then we call the physician to talk about what is going on specific to that patient. But we also have to determine that the patient is indeed homebound. We treat people in retire at homes and all right, some cases we’ve had patients that hop on the activity bus and go off to the casino. Yes, then, that isn’t qualifying for being homebound. God has that’s a little too mobile. So those kind of cases would go to outpatient services as opposed to homebound. Okay, home health. So, for example, let’s just throw out some scenarios. So let’s say dad has a stroke, is in the hospital, maybe went through a little bit of Rehab and rehabilitated care comes home. Finally, how it does home health fit into the picture? Well, lays on like myself, goes to the Rehab facility and picks up documentation and records as far as what is going on with a patient currently and what their needs are, and then our therapists then pick up where the therapist of the Rehab left off. So when a patient goes home, they’re no longer having nursing coming right to the room. These patients are now on their own to go make their own meals right, check their own mail, pick up the phone, get dressed on their own with no assurance. So home health is available to come help somebody regain the independence. On rape broader scale, got it tackling that staircase to go outside to check their mail, going up the stairs and into a bathroom that’s a lot different than what they saw in the hospital. The Rehab Center. We are talking to Chris Strands. She’s the community liaison for carriage home health. And Chris, where you guys located? What is your service area? So carriage home health is located out of Bellevuew but our service areas King County. So we treat patients that are discharging out of the hospitals, out of Rehab Centers, perhaps retirement living immunities. They don’t even have to be discharging retirement facility. We do treat people in those communities and Adult Family homps. Now, maybe you had your your mom come from out of town and she’s visiting you. What do you do if mom fell while setting you over the holidays? Well, homehealth can be administered in your home. That’s well, yeah, it’s great. I know my mom had issues when she was alive. She had issues with COPD and so she had vascular issues in her legs. So oftentimes she had to have moond care come in and that was, you know, that was a challenge oftentimes and and certainly we were so grateful to be able to have the services. And one of the things that I think is important too is her DAB as her daughter in her primary caregiver. I had the ability to dialog through a either a log book that was left in the home so I could see what was happening. But I think the other thing that’s really important is there is a there’s a way. Is there a way that you can interact with families as well that has you know, that have questions? Yes, actually, the clinicians themselves who are treating patients in the community. Families can call them directly. That’s and or be part of the actual treatment when that occurs. You know, I was quite surprised when I started home health one of the first cases we had on service over a year period of time and it was an example similar to your Um wound care. So home health can be involved as long as there’s a skilled need, and in that case it’s a nurse and we had a patient that it took like a year in a quarter right to heal that wound. So there’s no limits with home health as long as that there’s a need. That’s so important. And I think the other thing that’s so important with this whole picture is the fact that you know, we as family members. I I can’t emphasize this enough. Sometimes, oftentimes we need to be the eyes and the ears of what’s happening, because our parents may not necessarily even realize that they’re not walking right. They might not realize that they’re not you know that they’re not functioning right. And yes, we’re we understand that there’s a gradual decline with aging. It’s not about that, but sometimes mom or dad might have had a fall. I know. The other thing that’s really important about this is when my mom had fallen and broken her pelvis. This is way back when, when we, I first had to take care of her, she was terrified to walk again. She was afraid of falling and it was hard for me because I knew she needed to walk and I will never forget the struggles initially that I had with her of trying to get her to walk, and it caused a lot of strife. And you know, I wasn’t her daughter anymore because I had to turn into a drill sergeant. You were her caregiver and you know I I and yet I was so grateful for physical therapy because I could turn around and be her daughter again. You know, I saw her making strides and I didn’t have to be that drill sergeant anymore. So it’s you know as a family member, if you’re taking care of a loved one, there’s so many things that if if there’s an opportunity for a family member to not be the drill sergeant, you need to find those resources and know that those resources are available so you can be a daughter again or a son again. And that’s, I think, what’s so important and valuable about the relationships that you have with your with your senior loved one, and how you know these services like cart home health can help families here today. Yes, I again home health is under utilized. I think that it behooves everyone to ask for home health because home health can come out and make assessments on patients, whether it’s they’ve returned from a hospital setting, a rehab setting, maybe they didn’t even go to those settings and they’ve just had a recent illness. Home Health can assess a person in the home and see if we can assist them in getting stronger with physical therapy, maybe as occupational therapy, helping somebody regain the ability to cook for themselves and bathe themselves, etc. So it’s under utilized and if I can advocate at all for families is to ask for home health. It’s a simple ass calling your physician and saying, mom or dad or my husband is not walking very well. Can I have orders sent to home health please, and then home health will come in and make that assessment at the home. There is no charges for home health. If home health comes in and assesses your loved one and finds that they don’t meet the criteria, whether their homebound or have a skilled need home health, then would bow out. But oftentimes when people are alarmed and they are alarmed enough to call their doctor, home health is necessary. Chris, I am so grateful you’ve been on the program today to share all your information. How do we reach you? We can be reached at our website, which is www dotcare age healthcom. Wonderful. Thank you again for being in the program. Thank you, SI say. This has been a special presentation of answers for elders with carriage. For more information for carriage, go to CARRIAGECOM. That sere agecom.