The Process of Arranging for Home Health Services, 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 answers for elders radio everyone. I am here with a lovely Chris Strand from carriage home health. She’s the community liaison for Carriage Home Health and Chris, welcome here to the program Susanne. Thank you for having me. You know, I’m so glad. We are so excited to work with carriage. Every single aspect of your organization is so incredible and what I love about your philosophy is how you guys so much go the extra mile for so many people and in this community, not only for, you know, our individuals, but the special emphasis that you provide with our veterans and and that is so important because there’s so many aspects of you know, at veteran as your aging. And so when I’m excited to talk to you a little bit about today is, you know, you guys provide a very, very important value and that is home health. It’s something that obviously is administered in the home, where other types of services that you, your company provides, is administered outside of the you know, the link in the facilities themselves. So tell us a little bit about first let’s go back to just a general overview of what is home health. Home health is is medical or skilled intervention in the home. So it’s rehabilitative, not to be confused with home care. Right. So home health often is physical therapy in the home and or nursing care to help somebody stabilize a recent diagnosis or illness. Right. Okay. Yeah, so, just for an example, if I’m a admit less, say I’m being discharged from from a hospital, chances are there’s going to be some things that I’m going to have to do after I get out of the hospital that are medically involved, whether it’s physical therapy or maybe it’s wound care, maybe it’s speech therapy, things like that. That’s the kind of thing that home health does. Is that correct? It is. And and oftentimes a social worker at the hospital or Rehab setting well order home health. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes your mom is rushed through the hospital system and discharge way for you know it and your home with no medical help. Right. So you can be an advocate for your loved one by calling the physician and asking for home help. Often home health is under utilize because people don’t know to ask for it. Patients do not have to be in hospital setting and or have seen their doctor at an appointment to get home health. You can pick up the phone and call the doctor and ask for home help, and that’s what a very valuable thing to know. A lot of US listeners right now we already have parents that may be an assisted living but they’re not. The difference between assisted living again and home health is very different. Maybe mom or dad are having problems walking in there in assisted living their declining faster. So that’s the time when you should meet with your directive nursing of assisted living and say what you know? Can we bring home health in and through that assisted living nurse, they can facilitate with the doctor that’s there and help get that make that happen for your loved line. I think oftentimes families feel like their loved one is in a retirement community all their needs are taken care of right, which isn’t necessarily so. Very their isolate, isolated in their own apartment and may have a weakened condition where they’re not walking as well as they had been. Now the retirement home is an equipped or staff to be able to help somebody recuperate from weakness. So you need to be an advocate and asking can I have home health? How that process works, then, is the nurse would call the physician, the patient’s primary care physician. And as for home health orders, home health is a benefit that we all have, and so physical therapy is covered for their loved one in a retirement home or in and adult family home. Perhaps maybe it’s your own home because mom was visiting you from New York. So home health is a benefit that can intervene and help somebody get better when they’ve had an unexpected illness. You do not have to have gone to the hospital, nor a doctor’s appointment to be able to ask you well, and that’s the thing that’s so important. It’s like, you know, mom might have cut her finger, you know know, and you might need to have, you know, dressing put on a finger or something like that. That’s something that you guys can do that come to your parents home or to your home and have those things happen. It doesn’t have to be this or deal. It’s something that will absolutely make a difference in your parents the quality of life. And you know, what I look at is how many things that families could you know, achieve with their loved one if they bring home health in earlier. You know, occupy occupational therapy is so valuable and people don’t even know what that is. You know, an oft in case, physical therapy is getting strength back. How often even mom or dad might have a bad flu and they all of a sudden they get well and they feel, you know, weak, and then then what do they do? is they go sit because they don’t they’re afraid to fall. Yes, it’s really important at that time to make sure that there is a you know, that there’s an resource that the families know. You know, let’s get some home health in here and let’s get somebody to help build your strength back. So home health encompasses those disciplines you just reference. So nursing often can help ease the anxieties of a patient and their family when they’ve had a new diagnosis. We can help the home health nurse can help person understand how to manage their new treatment, their new diagnosis, so they can help ease that anxiety that maybe perhaps you were helping your mom. We can ease your anxieties and take that honus off. Well and, like you know, I’m sure your you know your therapist, the people that go to the locations. They have the ability to communicate with the family so that they’re a partner in the in the process, and I think to have that advocacy within your own you know, world, to have that advocate is so valuable in the overall picture of that. So we are talking to Chris Strand. She is a community relays on with carriage home health. And Chris, what areas do you serve? Carriage homehouse serves King County, were recently recently license in Pierce County, now Thurston County and we’re waiting arts and homes county license as well. Awesome. And of course you carriage is a company. You have several retirement communities, not in different capacity of care. I know that Patriots landing is down in the backyard of jab a lamb, which is important and serves so many of our veterans, and then you have Patriots Glen and Belle view and then you have mission healthcare, which is up in Bellevue as well and then soon too be in rented. Is that correct? Yes, mission health care in Renton is going to be open, I think, by May. That is so exciting and it’s so needed and and one of the things that I love about carriage is the fact that, you know, you could go into move into patriots landing, is a completely independent senior and in an independent cottage. Maybe, you know, come to a couple of meals if you wanted to, in a day. If you don’t, that’s fine too. There’s different ways in which you can, in you know ingratiate yourself to the process and they will. Carriage takes care of families until they die. They have a process. They can bring in hospice. And now do you guys provide a hospice aspect to with carriage from health? Currently, carriage from health does, does provide services? We do palliative care. Palliative care is an important thing for sure, because it’s basically had I own that there was such a thing as palliative care, I wouldn’t have had the sleepless nights that I had as a as in. You know, one of these days I would love to have a interview with you on Palliots of care. I think it’s important for families to understand what specifically it is. So you’ll do that different, different than hospice? Yes, yes, so. So now, if somebody’s going to call and and look for a home health provider. What should they look for? People need to look at who their insurance is contracted when. So all the agencies here in King County, for instance, have different contracts. So okay, let’s say your mom signed up their Medicare benefit to Medicare advantage under regents. Well, there’s specific providers that are contracted with regions for home health. So you need to ask that question first. Are you contracted with most? There’s several. There’s probably several, and shouldn’t the I’m just assuming, shouldn’t the healthcare provider have that information so that you’re not out there calling a million home home care come or home health companies? Right? If a social workers making a home health referral and let’s say they sent it to an agency this not contracted with that insurance, oftentimes that agency than either will call the social worker and or they will send the referral to a contracted age sency. So oftentimes that’s a smooth transition where your loved one would still get the home health needed under their insurance benefit. Well, that’s important too. Yes, yes, and I know too is families have a choice who they work with. So even now you’ve got the let’s say there’s five companies that your your insurance will will work with. HMM. What? What are some determining factors of how you select the right company? I’m glad you asked that. Oftentimes, here in King County there are many hospitals that have their own affiliated home health all of and retirement homes have preferred home health agencies. It is the family’s decision, the patients decision on what agency they prefer to use. I am now faced with when I meet with patients in the hospital setting or Rehab setting before discharge. They’ll say, I looked you up online and I saw your reviews, reviews and your star ratings and I chose you for that reason. Patients can look at those reviews and make their determination and tell their practitioner this is the agency I’d like to have. Well, and I think that’s very valuable. And we are in the world of social media and so you know that that goes into so many factors and I am so it’s so important is to, you know, check people out and and I would as as a family caregiver, before you hire it doesn’t hurt to interview you know several and to find out, you know, who is going to understand and respect the value system of your loved one. You know, what is the dialog going to be like? You know, and especially if it’s a you know, a father or a mother, situation where it maybe your family’s more formal, maybe in families more informal, maybe your family’s more touchy feeling, maybe they’re more STOIC. There’s all different types of ways that families have cultures and professionals need to recognize an honor that. So in that hope I I’m very glad we talked about that. Hey, Chris, thank you so much for being on the program today. How do we reach you? You can reach us either by phone at four two, five, five, one nine, one two hundred and sixty five, or our website, www dot healthcom. Thanks so much for being on the premier today. Thank you, Sam. This has been a special presentation of answers for elders with carriage. For more information for carriage, go to CARRIAGECOM. That’s sere agecom.