This lesson on Patient Complaints includes a complete training packet. Each in-service packet takes approximately one hour to complete and fully meets the Medicare in-service training requirements.

As aides need training, you can make as many copies as you want - there’s no restriction when used with aides assigned from your office location. Remember that Home Health Aides must have 12 hours of in-service training every year.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completion of this program, the home health aide will be able to:

• List two reasons patient complaints are significant
•Name two types of complaints patients may discuss with home health aides
•Describe the actions to take when a patient complains, and
•State the purpose of the toll-free hotline number.

LESSON OVERVIEW
Home health aides typically spend more time with patients than do other providers and their interaction is somewhat less formal. For those reasons, patients often discuss concerns about the agency with the aides. Aides are not likely to report such concerns if they fail to recognize the serious nature of them. The result can be an unhappy patient who calls the state to register a formal complaint against the agency.

The patients’ rights section of the Conditions of Participation indicate that each patient has a right to voice grievances and must not be subjected to discrimination for doing so. Further, the homecare agency must investigate any patient complaints, documenting both the existence and resolution of the complaint. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) added new requirements for patients’ rights related to confidentiality, including another avenue for filing complaints against a homecare agency.

The purpose of this in-service is to provide additional information to home health aides regarding patient complaints - how to recognize them, and what to do about them.

ALSO
Check out the complete series to add flexibility to your in-service training.

Catalog ID: HHAIS35