Home Care 101: Equipment Needed for Home Health Physical Therapy

[@user-hx5es7nu2e]

it is a good idea

[@user-hn9qg5qm3o]

I did home health and I didn’t like it. The treatments were about 50% taking all vitals. You were left with just a little time for actually doing PT and that was always pretty boring because keep in mind, the patient is “homebound.” They aren’t going to be able to do much, nor do they usually want to. Your treatments literally may consist of standing up and sitting down from a chair a couple times, maybe a few leg kicks for exercise, and if you catch them on a good day you might squeeze in a short walk to the kitchen and back. Much of home health PT is not really PT. You are called PT, but you are really more like a nurse that also throws in a little movement into the visit. Many of these patients will likely be quite obese and like this guy says, their homes will usually have sanitation issues. The best way I can describe some of the visits is it’s just like working in a nursing home except you’re required to do what the nurses do (take vitals, listen to lung sounds, peripheral pulses, assess the patients overall health minus giving out medication) then you can do a little PT, and lastly you must call patient’s physician and report any abnormal findings you may have noticed in your overall medical assessment. That’s where it can get frustrating because 99% of the time you will not be speaking directly to the physician, but often to a nurse or many times not even a nurse but some office assistant who is going to take a note to give to doctor. Often you’ll get a call around 5:30-6 pm that same evening from the doctor who is finally doing his follow up calls at the end of his business day. You may be off the clock at that point, but you still have to answer the calls and talk to physician about that patient. Perhaps you’ll be eating dinner or something, but it’s part of the job. Keep in mind, I said it’s similar to a nursing home, except imagine it sometimes being dirty floors and no place to want to sit. You’ll have a laptop and will likely not have a clean place to sit. Therefore you won’t get to “document in the home” as manager suggests for time management. You’ll likely finish your treatments and then go out to your car to do this documentation. It can often eat up a good chunk of your time. I’m not saying any of this to discourage anyone from doing home health, but just trying to paint an accurate picture of how it really can be. It’s not always as glamorous as the little pictures the companies display on their advertisements showing some glowing happy home healthcare worker inside the background of a beautifully clean home of some older person who is also looking up with all smiles. I think with nursing they may smile more, but when they see PT coming they often have a sigh because not many want to get up from their comfy la-z-boy recliner. Also keep in mind many companies pay per visit and sometimes these patients can just cancel on you at random and when they do that your paycheck is also going down. It can sometimes be frustrating, but that’s just the way it works. I’m not all negative about it. There is occasionally a better home to go to and sometimes patients are nice to work with, but just don’t expect that all the time. You may have to go in cigarette smoke filled homes too and the patient may even be smoking at the moment you are trying to visit them. You can’t tell them to put out the cigarette in their own home. It’s a tough situation to be in if you are sensitive to breathing cigarette smoke. I often found myself doing the completion of my documentation at the end of the day between 5-7pm. I wasn’t paid any more money either so I was basically working from 8am-7pm with the same pay as if I were working 8am-5pm.

[@dr.smith_dpt]

Thank you for your comment - sounds like you do not or did not set boundaries for yourself - I’ve helped 1000+ PTs earn 100k plus in home care since this video was made with some earning 200k plus But i also left patient care and i now only tell people to do HH for the money then leave and build businesses fact is HH is one of the fastest ways to get paid so you can live a life of freedom

[@user-hn9qg5qm3o]

@@dr.smith_dpt I appreciate your input, but that’s my whole issue with healthcare in general. It takes advantage of the system and how it’s setup just to milk people’s insurance. More money keeps going into your pocket while you keep dishing out home visits that really aren’t getting the patient significantly better (emphasis on the word significantly). PT’s also have a sneaky little way of writing in their documentation that the patient would benefit from more visits of home health when in reality if they were honest they know that patient has reached their peak potential considering their health condition. It’s a system designed to keep milking out those insurance dollars by taking advantage of the system…extremely wasteful to the healthcare expenditure of the USA, and yet we still have a sluggish healthcare system compared to many other countries. I just can’t feel like I had a good days work when I operated under this kind of mindset. Much of the PT done in home health could easily be taught how to do by the patient’s 16 year old grand daughter. Yet you go to school and take on all this loan debt for all this massive amount of information that you don’t even use 75% of it (like knowing the brachial plexus…when is the last time you really had to have that memorized for your job in home health??). You typically just walk a patient around to the kitchen and kick their legs a few times in the chair. That’s basically the sum of home health PT. Sure, you can argue that you’re making money, but you eventually burnout because it gets quite boring after a while. You start realizing that the work is not actually doing a whole lot from a PT standpoint even though taking vitals is important. I will say once a while you may have a patient that does seem to benefit a little from PT, but it’s tough to say because much of it is very subjective. Muscle grade tests are subjective. You could easily call it a 3, when I could call it a 4+. Your documentation could then say they still lack strength and need more PT. But mine would say the patient is good and no more PT needed. So then you would make more money because you fabricated a story in your documentation based on subjective reporting that they are still “weak” and need more PT. Honestly man I’m not buying it, but if it makes you happy to milk the system for what it’s worth then go for it. Just doesn’t satisfy me to do that at the end of the day. I don’t feel like I truly am living up to why I chose to do PT.

[@dr.smith_dpt]

@@user-hn9qg5qm3o Its because you did not got to PT school to be micromanaged. Insurance based care has ruined healthcare, which is again why I recommend everyone do what they need to to leave. I left patient care over a year ago and have no desire to go back because it's not worth the time, education, or money spent.

[@user-hn9qg5qm3o]

@@dr.smith_dpt Exactly, I agree completely, which is also why I have gotten completely out of the PT industry. It’s mostly a joke…emphasis on word mostly. Once in a while you’ll come across someone eager to get better and willing to push themselves with resistance training to get stronger and improve, but it’s rare to come by. That’s why I say most PT is a waste of time.

[@allthingsdelightful8565]

I am an old head. I remember back when PT program was still a bachelors degree. Home health kills your trunk space for real. Between all this stuff I literally have no place for my own items like groceries and shopping bags.

[@dr.smith_dpt]

all things delightful - yep. But I’d rather be driving than in an office all day

[@lennoxcrochet9718]

Great info ❤️💕thanks

[@wonderbeauty10]

Omgosh you just said bed bugs. I forgot about that!!! I can't do it!

[@jennifergarcia280]

How safe do you feel in other homes as a home health pt

[@dr.smith_dpt]

Jennifer Garcia I will make a separate video on this, but under medicare part A most of my patients are homebound meaning they cannot leave their home without it being a taxing and exerting effort so it’s more cleanliness issues than safety. The only time i’ve almost gotten hurt was when a small dog tried to attack me.

[@sowmyasp2776]

@@dr.smith_dpt how did you manage after that incident?

[@dr.smith_dpt]

@@sowmyasp2776 i jumped out of the way and didn’t get bit - see the dog bite video on the channel

[@rinasandwich36]

Which facebook group are you referring to?