Back to the Future--You Can Still Get Your Medical Care at Home
by Michael Nowling
Perhaps you're not old enough to remember, but it wasn't that long ago that the sight of a man carrying a small black bag up the walk to your front door could mean only one thing. Can you guess? No, it wasn't an IRS auditor. Not an insurance salesman. It was not even someone selling Amway or running for mayor. It was the doctor coming to your house.
It may seem odd to us now, but in those days doctors commonly visited the homes of patients to give care. This practice seemed to go by the wayside as the baby boom swamped physicians with a wave of new patients.
This might be a pretty short story except for Family Home Care and Hospice (FHCH), a home health agency headquartered in Spokane, WA. FHCH currently serves home care patients in Eastern Washington State and in Northern Idaho. FHCH has now launched a new service providing primary care medical services in patient's homes. Known as "House Calls" the new service will offer patients a generous selection of medical services including routine check-ups, prescribing medications, monitoring medications, blood draws, and more. After the first visit and diagnosis, patients can continue with their House Calls provider or they may also do any follow-up with their normal physician.
Medical professionals staffing the House Calls program are Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners (ARNP). They have additional training and are specially licensed for providing medical services in the patient's home. These skilled professionals would rather see a patient in a home environment instead of at a clinic or a hospital.
"It gives us an opportunity to spend much more time with each patient," explained Carol Charles, ARNP. "We get to know them on a much more personal level and can observe the environment in which they live. Many times those observations give us a greater advantage in prescribing effective treatments than if we were seeing the patient in a clinic."
The House Calls service is perfect for bed ridden or home-bound patients or patients who have difficulty getting to the doctor's office. However, the service is not restricted merely to the home-bound, but can be utilized by anyone in the community who would like primary care medical services to be performed in their home.
"We see mostly elderly patients," noted Alicia Bowman, FHCH's primary care coordinator, "as they tend to have the greatest need, but we also see a number of younger patients. There is no reason to feel like this is only something for the elderly."
Across the nation, services such as House Calls which provide needed primary medical care in the home are rare or non-existent. Without services such as House Calls, many elderly or less mobile patients will not seek medical attention and will allow their condition to worsen until emergency treatment is needed. Even in ideal circumstances, some bed-ridden patients will put off medical care long enough that their illness becomes much more advanced. The presence of a service like House Calls in a community is a foundational element in the health care of this segment of the population.
The demand for a House Calls style service in the Spokane area is vigorous. The situation is likely much the same in other markets. The increasing population of elderly patients across the nations means that such in-home services will be required in most communities across the country.
"Home health agencies like Family Home Care and Hospice are in a perfect position to offer this valuable and necessary service to their communities," noted Michael Nowling, President of Family Home Care and Hospice. "I believe this service trend, if adopted by enough home health agencies throughout the country, will be a huge benefit to our aging population and will also relieve some of the burden on our hospital emergency rooms and staff."
The largest privately owned home health agency in it's market area, Family Home Care and Hospice has been seeing patients in the Inland Northwest for more than 40 years. Family Home Care and Hospice has been honored by Medicare as one of the top 1 percent of home health agencies in Washington State. They have also been recognized as being among the top five percent of home health agencies in the nation.
Michael Nowling is the President of FHCH, a home health agency in Spokane, WA. The largest privately owned home health agency in Spokane, FHCH has been serving the inland Northwest for more than 40 years. This and other unique content 'health care' articles are available with free reprint rights.
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