Home visits
Lynette
Description
Collection
Title:
Home visits
Creator:
Lynette
Date:
10/5/2010
Text:
I received one more reply which I would like to pass along. Again thank you to all who responded.
Original question
Our company is fine tuning it's home visit policy. I'm trying to
> ascertain the home visit policy of other facilities. What are you willing
> to fit at home vs. what must be fit in the office with parallel bars.
> Thank you in advance.
One more reply. Used to do home visits, for 10 years and got good at
them. But, It is a good way to destroy your reputation. You cannot do
a great job in a home visit and the patients will see it as
incompetence. I now compete with a company that does home visits and
we tend to pick up their home visit patients for the second
prosthesis... because they were so poorly served. and yes these
patients make the effort to come to our office.
In your facility every time you run a leg/ orthosis back to your lab
for an adjustment or repair it is the equivalent of another trip to
your lab and back to the patients home. It can take several trips to a
patients home and back to the lab to get a prosthesis/ orthosis just
right. Of course in the office you hand the repairs to your tech and
take care of the next patient.
Next: what happens when you are at a patients home and an emergency
adj/ repair comes into your office... you're not there.
And: if you are driving from house to house you cannot fit very many
patients in, plus you cannot hand work to a tech, so you may only fit
4 or 5 patients into a days work. So when you are doing house calls
your other patients are forced to wait longer to see you, and your
revenue drops because your production drops at least in half.
Our competitor does house calls and we are glad, it destroys their
reputation and we look great because we can fit everyone into the
schedule, take care of them ASAP, and always do a quality job. Not so
for the house call folks. At some point you have to admit to yourself
that house calls are really nothing more than ambulance chasing. If
you are that slow that you have to drive to people's homes to get them
to come to you then you need to take a good hard look at why you are
so slow. Maybe their are too many facilities in the area, or your new
in the area, or.... But it really is ambulance chasing.
We do hospital and nursing home visits, of course.
On Oct 4, 2010, at 10:01 AM, Lynette wrote:
> Thank you to all who replied. I found the most practitioners do
> home visits, but some would rather not. I have posted the responses
> below.
>
>
> Original message,
>
> Our company is fine tuning it's home visit policy. I'm trying to
> ascertain the home visit policy of other facilities. What are you
> willing to fit at home vs. what must be fit in the office with
> parallel
> bars. Thank you in advance.
>
> Responses,
>
> I suppose that practicing in an a city or densely populated area
> calls for
> different protocol regarding what you are willing or able to do at a
> patients home. I have been seeing clients in their home for the past
> 30
> years in the rural bucolic regions of Maine and can readily perform
> any
> orthotic or prosthetic procedure that I can do in my office save
> casting for
> a spinal and there are ways to achieve that goal too.
> For me it is pleasing my referral sources and the community. It does
> take
> some time to establish exactly what items you will need for any
> given task
> to be preformed on a house call but again, that will come with
> experience.
> Common sense rules.
> Good luck with your home visit policy.
>
> Home visits are often a hot topic. I don't know of any Orthotist or
> Prosthetist that prefers to do home visits purely from a controlled
> environment standpoint. In many cases it is a security risk to the
> practitioner. When we are asked to do a home visit we are under the
> assumption that the patient has had a proper home evaluation by the
> P.T.
> and all necessary items are in place. If the home is lacking what you
> require then you most certainly have justification for the patient to
> come to the office. Often times the patients will state they can't
> come
> to the office but the reality is that can't means don't want to.
> Insurances do pay for transportation to medical offices.
> Nothing is more frustrating to have a patient on Home Health say they
> can't have you come to their home today because they are going to the
> doctors office that is 50 yards down the road from your facility.
>
> Typically off the shelf items that can be predictably fit in one
> visit. Do
> you charge?
>
> We visit Clients that are unable to drive to our office whether it
> be assisted living, skilled Nursing, Hospital, Hospice etc. We will
> perform most adjustments that can be done outside the facility
> including thermal recountouring, strap replacements, etc. as you
> become more proficient in problems outside the office you learn to
> anticipate the majority of them and hopefully prepare for them. If
> we get a Client that is demanding with custom shapes, trim lines,
> etc. we will insist that they come to our office.
>
>
Original question
Our company is fine tuning it's home visit policy. I'm trying to
> ascertain the home visit policy of other facilities. What are you willing
> to fit at home vs. what must be fit in the office with parallel bars.
> Thank you in advance.
One more reply. Used to do home visits, for 10 years and got good at
them. But, It is a good way to destroy your reputation. You cannot do
a great job in a home visit and the patients will see it as
incompetence. I now compete with a company that does home visits and
we tend to pick up their home visit patients for the second
prosthesis... because they were so poorly served. and yes these
patients make the effort to come to our office.
In your facility every time you run a leg/ orthosis back to your lab
for an adjustment or repair it is the equivalent of another trip to
your lab and back to the patients home. It can take several trips to a
patients home and back to the lab to get a prosthesis/ orthosis just
right. Of course in the office you hand the repairs to your tech and
take care of the next patient.
Next: what happens when you are at a patients home and an emergency
adj/ repair comes into your office... you're not there.
And: if you are driving from house to house you cannot fit very many
patients in, plus you cannot hand work to a tech, so you may only fit
4 or 5 patients into a days work. So when you are doing house calls
your other patients are forced to wait longer to see you, and your
revenue drops because your production drops at least in half.
Our competitor does house calls and we are glad, it destroys their
reputation and we look great because we can fit everyone into the
schedule, take care of them ASAP, and always do a quality job. Not so
for the house call folks. At some point you have to admit to yourself
that house calls are really nothing more than ambulance chasing. If
you are that slow that you have to drive to people's homes to get them
to come to you then you need to take a good hard look at why you are
so slow. Maybe their are too many facilities in the area, or your new
in the area, or.... But it really is ambulance chasing.
We do hospital and nursing home visits, of course.
On Oct 4, 2010, at 10:01 AM, Lynette wrote:
> Thank you to all who replied. I found the most practitioners do
> home visits, but some would rather not. I have posted the responses
> below.
>
>
> Original message,
>
> Our company is fine tuning it's home visit policy. I'm trying to
> ascertain the home visit policy of other facilities. What are you
> willing to fit at home vs. what must be fit in the office with
> parallel
> bars. Thank you in advance.
>
> Responses,
>
> I suppose that practicing in an a city or densely populated area
> calls for
> different protocol regarding what you are willing or able to do at a
> patients home. I have been seeing clients in their home for the past
> 30
> years in the rural bucolic regions of Maine and can readily perform
> any
> orthotic or prosthetic procedure that I can do in my office save
> casting for
> a spinal and there are ways to achieve that goal too.
> For me it is pleasing my referral sources and the community. It does
> take
> some time to establish exactly what items you will need for any
> given task
> to be preformed on a house call but again, that will come with
> experience.
> Common sense rules.
> Good luck with your home visit policy.
>
> Home visits are often a hot topic. I don't know of any Orthotist or
> Prosthetist that prefers to do home visits purely from a controlled
> environment standpoint. In many cases it is a security risk to the
> practitioner. When we are asked to do a home visit we are under the
> assumption that the patient has had a proper home evaluation by the
> P.T.
> and all necessary items are in place. If the home is lacking what you
> require then you most certainly have justification for the patient to
> come to the office. Often times the patients will state they can't
> come
> to the office but the reality is that can't means don't want to.
> Insurances do pay for transportation to medical offices.
> Nothing is more frustrating to have a patient on Home Health say they
> can't have you come to their home today because they are going to the
> doctors office that is 50 yards down the road from your facility.
>
> Typically off the shelf items that can be predictably fit in one
> visit. Do
> you charge?
>
> We visit Clients that are unable to drive to our office whether it
> be assisted living, skilled Nursing, Hospital, Hospice etc. We will
> perform most adjustments that can be done outside the facility
> including thermal recountouring, strap replacements, etc. as you
> become more proficient in problems outside the office you learn to
> anticipate the majority of them and hopefully prepare for them. If
> we get a Client that is demanding with custom shapes, trim lines,
> etc. we will insist that they come to our office.
>
>
Citation
Lynette, “Home visits,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed May 3, 2025, http://23.254.134.177/library/items/show/231896.
