Frequency of WR
The doctor's and I at Mooresville have had this conversation many times and agree that having the Wellness Review completed after the initial treatment ends and then every 6 months would be sufficient. Should the patient come in presenting a new or changed issue then the PT History form should be completed, not a Wellness Review.
On the All Hands there was a slide with this statement: "Proper documentation of re-examinations is CRUCIAL, including the patients current status, updated findings progress discussion, revision to the plan, updated goals and diagnosis and rationale for future services."
Is the wellness review form addressing all of these or are the doctor's putting those notes in the back office?
Maybe decrease the frequency of the form as well as updating the form to include all of the above information so we have that crucial documentation covered.
I agree that the wellness review form is not sufficient to properly document the re-examination. The brunt of the above noted requirements are done in back office by the doctor. I feel like the wellness review is not really necessary at all if the doctor is noting the patients status and updating that portion in back office. The wellness review might also be giving the doctors a false sense of security that they are covered from a documentation standpoint when realistically there are several more pieces to a proper re-examination that I feel are being skipped regularly: like an actual exam including ROM and neuro, updating goals, updating diagnoses. So to summarize what I'm saying is that I feel that if we are properly doing are jobs in the back we would be covered without the wellness review at all.
I get this perspective, but then is 6 months sufficient for what would be a regular check in? Others feel free to give your opinion.
And to Dr. Mike ..that is an excellent point.
I think the purpose of the wellness review is JUST for patients who have been wellness care and on a maintenance plan just to show that we checked in to determine the appropriateness of continuing maintenance care with no need to step that up to something more active or more frequent.
It exists to prevent people from falling through the cracks who would remain on maintenance for something like 3 years and we never bothered to ask them if that was appropriate, which used to happen quite frequently.
In terms of maintenance care patients, how frequently do you think we should do an entirely new workup and exam if we were to do it the way you suggested?