Help, what to do?

[Guest guest]

Group,

I am not sure what to do and need some advice.

I am a contract therapy for a home health agency. I called a patient last week

to tell them I was coming out to the house and she informed me that another

therapist had called that they were on their way out as well. I told her it

would take me 20 minutes to get there, and that I could do some paperwork if

needed if the other therapist had not finished yet. I arrived 25 minutes later

to find that the therapist had already come and gone for the eval. I arrived at

the patient house at 12:50. Today I noticed that the therapist had written on

his eval that he was there from 5:18 to 6 PM, which is a lie (or fraud?)

So my question is: is this considered fraud under medicare, the therapist is

paid per visit, not sure how the agency is paid and if medicare requires a

minimum per visit, but at the very least the patient was done a disservice and

the therapist is lying to the agency about how long he is with the patient. I

actually had a different patient complaining to me before that this therapist

was never staying more than 5 minutes.

So where do I go from here?

Appreciate any input. Remember I am a therapist there not a manager, so let me

know from an employee side what I need to do next.

Odilia