Many doctors are returning to the practice of medicine a
hundred years ago and are making house calls.
Certain health insurance plans including Medicare will now reimburse a
doctor and possibly a staff member -- if test equipment is involved -- to visit
home bound patients in their homes.
To qualify for a home visit the patient must have to
experience great difficulty in leaving the home. This does not however mean the care recipient
need be completely disabled. It simply
means that transportation requirements or help needed to get to a doctor might
be very expensive or difficult to provide or leaving the home might jeopardize
the patient’s safety.
Doctors are willing to visit in the home and provide service
because they are paid more money by health insurance providers to compensate
the doctors for their time and their loss of efficiency in meeting patients in
their offices. The insurance providers reason that the additional cost of
meeting with patients at home, before major medical problems evolve, is more
cost effective than paying for ambulances and treatment in emergency rooms.
Doctors who make home visits are more likely to be
experienced in geriatric care. This is because most home bound patients are
elderly. This is a positive advantage for a family using a home visiting
physician since it is better for the older person to be treated by a doctor
with experience in this area. Treatment from someone experienced in geriatrics
will typically result in better care.
There are also a number of other advantages to home visits
compared with office visits. The patient will be more relaxed and cooperative
in familiar surroundings. Older people are thrilled that a doctor would take
time to visit them in their home. They will be more compliant, more open and as
a result receive better treatment as oppos
ed to receiving care in the doctor's
office. Typically the doctor will take more time and be able to establish a
better rapport with his patient. The idea of the doctor not having to hurry off
to another patient in another room is comforting to an older person.
Another very important benefit is that a physician can see
the environment in which his patient is living and have a better understanding
of how that environment may affect his patient's health. By seeing it
first-hand he can make recommendations for care that would have been impossible
in his office. In essence the doctor learns much more about a patient in her
home and he can achieve a personal connection that would have been difficult to
establish in the office. The ultimate outcome of a house call is that the
doctor can provide a greater degree of holistic medical care.
Testing equipment in the past few years has become more
portable and the doctor can bring an assistant who might provide tests on site.
Heart function, lung function and simple blood tests performed on site can give
the doctor an immediate feedback on the needs of his patient and allow him to
make treatment decisions without the delay of waiting for test results.
It's exciting to see that innovations in home visits for
patients could be creating a new level of quality care for the elderly.
No comments:
Post a Comment