Recent Posts
To Be a 5-Star Agency, Pay Close Attention to Rehabilitation Potential
Value-based Purchasing (VBP) & Medicare Reimbursement
Medicare's Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) became effective for all certified home health agencies on 1/1/2023. Under VBP your Agency's Medicare payments are determined by three conditions: (1) CAHPS - patient satisfaction scores, (2)...
OASIS-E M1306 Pressure Ulcers: Home Health Careplan & Teaching
Any person who is in a bed or chair for 8 hours or longer is at risk for pressure ulcers. Pressure ulcers - also known as bed sores, decubitus ulcers, pressure sores and skin ulcers - often develop in patients with the following conditions: diabetes mellitus, deep venous thrombosis,...
OASIS E: Four (4) Questions on Patient Nutrition
Medicare's OASIS-E assessment, effective January 2023, expanded its data collection on the patient's nutritional status to include four (4) more questions on Start of care, Resumption and Discharge.
The presence of Parenteral/IV feeding and Feeding tube (e.g., nasogastric or abdominal...
Guidance for OASIS M1041/6 Flu Vaccine
Medicare added the status of a patient's vaccination for influenza (as M1040) in 2009. The answer to "Influenza Vaccine Data Collection Period" (now M1041) is collected at transfer/discharge and discharge but many EMRs - home health software - capture the data on admission, resumption...
Do Not Resuscitate - 4 Keys to Effective Patient Communication
The patient's physician writes a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order when cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should not be attempted. Because CPR will not be attempted, other resuscitative measures that follow it (tracheal intubation, cardiac monitoring, cardiac defibrillation etc) will...
What's the Most Important Intervention for Hypertension?
For patients with hypertension, teaching the patient (or caregiver) to take her/his own blood pressure should be the #1 objective of the home health clinician.
High blood pressure - hypertension - is called the “silent killer" because it often has no warning signs or symptoms and...
Treating Insomnia in the Elderly: Home Health Careplan
Insomnia, aka 'interrupted nighttime sleep', is a persistent problem in the elderly. Age-related sleep problems are frequently and mistakenly considered to be a normal part of aging. It's been reported that more than 50% of people over 65 experience regular insomnia.
Home Health Ethics: Explaining Patient Rights on Admission
In the healthcare setting, ethical behavior includes
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- respecting patient choice,
- protecting patient confidentiality, privacy, and security, and
- administering health care services according to professionally-accepted standards of practice.
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