Before the Car Leaves
The Agency List Is a List: Check Who Made It, What It Covers, and Your Right to Choose
Before the car is brought around, you can ask the hospital who put each home health agency on its list, check whether each one can serve your parent, and choose the one that will actually come to the house.
Your parent is still in the bed, and the discharge team may hand you a list of home health agencies. Read it before anyone moves your parent to the car. The names on the list are not the decision. The decision is yours, and you can make it with a few questions.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Ask the discharge planner these, in order
1. Ask who put the agency names on the list, and whether the hospital has a financial interest in any of them. Federal discharge planning rules (eCFR, 42 CFR 482.43) ask the hospital to tell you when it has that kind of interest. Ask the question out loud and listen for the answer.
2. Ask whether each agency is Medicare-certified. Ask whether it serves your parent's street and the days your parent will be home.
3. Ask what each agency will send. Is it nursing visits, therapy visits, aide visits, or a mix? Then ask which of those your parent's discharge orders name. The orders decide what is ordered, so compare the agency's services against them.
4. Ask whether the referral has already gone out, and to which agency. If it went to a name you did not pick, ask how to change it before the first visit.
5. Ask for the phone number to call if the first visit does not happen on the day given. Write down who answers and at what time of day they answer.
Fill in one line for each agency
Keep a single sheet with three columns: the first visit day, the person you call to confirm it, and the person you call if it does not come. Fill in the sheet while you are still in the hallway. If you cannot fill in a line, that agency needs another question before you choose it.
What you are choosing
You are choosing who will come through your parent's front door, so the question is fit. Pick the agency that answers the phone, covers your parent's address, and can give you the first visit day in writing. Medicare lets your parent choose the agency. The list is a starting point, not an order, and you do not have to take the first name that is read to you.
Before you sign
Check who can say yes for your parent. That is a separate question from the agency choice, and it needs a clear answer before the agency paperwork is signed. For St. Louis contacts, see Local Help After a Discharge.