Hospitals’ shortcomings in providing post-acute care providers with adequate discharge information prompted federal regulators to issue a special memo the first week of June.
Nursing homes and home health providers too often have been receiving patients with conditions they are not prepared for, putting both care providers and patients at risk, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services warned state survey agency directors.
Post-acute providers might not be equipped or trained properly to care for newly admitted patients without full information. Some specific “areas of concern” are “missing or inaccurate information” related to patients with serious mental illness, complex behavioral needs or substance abuse problems.
Underlying diagnoses related to the mental illness or substance abuse; full information about specific hospital treatments; and medication lists also have been incomplete, CMS said, listing at least a dozen other hospital information shortcomings.
From the July/August 2023 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
