Social Admissions! Who knew? Burnt knew!
I never knew! Burnt answered one of our OPs today that if she is completely overwhelmed with the care of hubby and cannot go on she can take him to the ER not as an "ER DUMP" which honestly no longer works well, but as a social admit.
I looked it up and it does exist and does have a code.
An overwhelmed caregiver can take the one cared for to the ER and ask for a Social Admit. There's a code for it. The Social Workers will then swing in and try to convince that they can help get aid and get the person back home, but apparently if this is stuck to the person can and will be admitted.
I honestly had no idea. I didn't work ER but occ. floated there and never witnessed it the few times I was there. I did see one gentleman get admitted when his wife had a CVA at home and he had no one to care for him. And he must have then been coded as a Social Admit until placement was found.
What great information. I wonder why any of us are considering trying the ER dump when this exists. I simply had no idea, but googling it proves Burnt is absolutely correct on this one.
For me, great new information. I learn a ton of stuff here all the time.
Almost a year ago my husband was in hospital and I was told about it.
In May this year I was looking for respite stay for him and nobody could find one room in city with over 1.2 million people! Not enough facilities.
Three agencies involved and SW suggested just that she would call hospital and they would arrange for him to stay there.
Luckily found good AL for his respite stay.
First, the sw is paid to ask the hard questions and triage accordingly. And the fact is that “I’m not financially able to provide the care that he needs” will not be seen as emergent enough to trigger a social admit. And given that she has a minor living there, any suicidal or catatonic theatrics might just trigger a cps visit.
This should not be the way to get care, but unfortunately there’s no other good option many times that works, especially if you don’t have resources, For the resource limited, what they want you to do is apply for LTC Medicaid, get approved, and then call on different nursing homes to see if they have an open bed and will admit your LO. This is simply too much of an arduous and time consuming task when you need help now. So for those people what are their options?
Also, if a social admit happens when there's no medical necessity, does this mean that Medicare doesn't cover anything related to it?
Geaton, I attached a Iink above regarding Medicare and social Admits. Generally it is tough for the hospital to get reimbursed from Medicare. The bill would then fall on the patient, but most who are in that position don't have the resources anyway.
It shouldn't be so hard to get care that is obviously needed but, unless one is wealthy, the American healthcare system clearly is not the "world's finest" anymore. When it takes me a month or more to get an appointment with my PCP, something is not working right. People shouldn't have to go to the ER and wait 8+ hours to be seen for a NON-emergent condition that could have been handled in their PCP's office.
For instance, if a caregiver has a medical emergency, needs EMS & gets transport to ER - plus - someone they care for would be left unsafe home alone, then that person can be brought along too. Until other arrangements can be made.
I imagine as soon as they arrive in ER a SW gets busy on the phone & starts calling every relative they can find "Come get Gramma/Gramps now." If no-one found, they live too far, just can't etc then SW gets busy on paperwork & locating an emergency bed in a nursing home type of facility.