In September, the Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing had 5 home health agency recertification surveys available for review. All 5 of these recertification visits were completed at 34 months since the last recertification survey. There are currently no home health agencies that exceed the 36-month recertification period for certified home health agencies. There were an average of 4.8 deficiencies cited during these visits. Here is a breakdown of the deficiencies cited during these surveys:
- G528 – Cited 3 times when the skilled nurse visit notes lacked assessments of wounds, measurements of dehiscence associated with a wound, and the depth of a wound.
- G536 – Cited 2 times when comprehensive assessments lacked documentation of drug regimen reviews including that they were completed, documentation of ineffective drug therapy, accurate medication lists, or that medication was expired.
- G572 – Cited 1 time when the agency failed to notify the physician when a second physical therapy visit wasn’t completed for 1 week.
- G574 – Cited 5 times when the plan of care failed to include all equipment used by the patient including but not limited to wheelchair cushion, accurate wound care orders and treatments, ibuprofen, melatonin, incorrect medication doses compared to bottles, a life alert, lift chair, reacher, pill splitter, incontinent products, spirometer, shower chair, and a saline flush.
- G576 – Cited 2 times when the plan of care didn’t include physical therapy services.
- G682 – Cited 2 times for infection control concerns identified during observation of visits including failure to complete hand hygiene and when a barrier wasn’t used to place reusable patient items on the patient’s end table.
- G768 – Cited 2 times when home health aides didn’t have documented competency training and evaluation on tracheostomy care and application of pain patches.
- G798 – Cited 1 time when the home health aide plan of care lacked directions on assistive devices necessary to aide the patient in transferring.
- G800 – Cited 1 time when the home health aide didn’t follow the home health aide plan of care as they were instructed to offer a shower first and then a bed bath.
- G1012 – Cited 4 times when items weren’t in the patient’s clinical record including physical therapy visit notes, documentation that photos of burns were sent to the burn unit weekly as directed, the discharge summary with medication list that was sent to the provider upon discharge, an order for an antibiotic, and weekly wound assessments and measurements.