In the fairy tale movie classic " The Princess Bride," Miracle Max (played by Billy Crystal) is the medieval "pharmacist" responsible for concocting a magic potion to bring hero Wesley back to life from a "mostly dead" state. When asked to hurry the job, he snarkily replies: "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
Such is often the case when hospital patients are transferred and become nursing home residents. The rush of the transfer process can sometimes expose nursing home residents to serious harm.
WHAT'S THE HURRY?
From The Hospital's Standpoint:
When a Medicare patient is admitted to a hospital, the hospital's payment is based on the diagnosis or DRG ("diagnosis related group"), and NOT the number of days spent in the hospital. But there are special "transfer DRG's" that determine a hospital's payment for patients transferred to skilled nursing facilities like nursing homes.
It's complicated. But at the root of it is the possibility that a patient transferred from a hospital may be due in part to payment and reimbursement rules as opposed to what is in the patient's best medical interests.
From The Nursing Home's Standpoint:
Any seasoned nursing home malpractice attorney is familiar with the term "census" or "census development." It refers to a nursing home's efforts to fill as many empty beds as possible. Simple math is the reason: more resident bodies in beds, more $$$. Nursing homes have departments and personnel dedicated to the recruitment and referral of patients from both hospitals and directly from the community. Their Marketing departments work directly with hospitals to stay top of mind for hospital referrals, and their Admissions departments are charged with screening admissions to make sure the nursing home can meet the residents' care needs upon admission.
That's all well and good, but in the rush to keep the census of admissions high, it can be a breeding ground for mistakes, shortcuts, and cutting corners.
The Rushed Admission...
The turnaround on a transfer from a hospital to a nursing home can be less than 24 hours. In a recent case I litigated, the nursing home was sent medical information regarding the patient's condition and medical needs, and accepted the patient for a future transfer within hours. So far, so good, but the patient was not transferred to the nursing home until late afternoon on a Friday--some 48 hours later. Upon arrival, there was no oxygen in the room and no special breathing equipment per the hospital physicians' orders. It was a rushed transfer and admission, and things only got worse because of a series of choices by the nursing home about when to order necessary equipment.
The nursing home had a policy of not ordering certain respiratory equipment until after the patient arrived, for fear of being charged for delivery and use of the equipment in the event the patient did not arrive at the home for whatever reason. Unfortunately in this case, the equipment did not arrive until after the patient died, approximately 12 hours after admission.
By the time a hospital patient is transferred to a nursing home, the nursing home is supposed to be familiar with the patient's specific care needs. Federal regulations require it:
Each resident must receive and the facility must provide the necessary care and services to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychological well-being, in accordance with the comprehensive assessment and the plan of care.
In virtually every case, the hospital sends the physician's orders to the nursing home so that the nursing home can make sure the patient's specific care needs can be met. What's more, the patient typically shows up at the nursing home with a copy of the hospital physician's orders, in case they weren't transmitted before his or her arrival. Yet, despite clear orders and regulations, necessary equipment is sometimes not present when the patient arrives.
The Takeaway...
If your loved one is about to be transferred from a hospital to a nursing home, ask as many questions of the nursing home as you possibly can. Make sure you have a copy of the physicians' orders that will accompany your loved one to the nursing home, and have the hospital explain it to you and go over any abbreviations in the orders.
Make sure those orders make sense to you. And when you arrive at the nursing home, you'll have a good idea what their marching orders are, and what they should be doing to follow them.
