“So, You Do Home Care?” “No, I Make House Calls”

By Beth Brown,  PT, GCS
FOX Physical Therapist and Regional Quality Assurance Liaison

“So, what do you do for a living,” someone asks.

“I am a physical therapist for FOX Rehabilitation; I provide physical therapy services in people’s homes,” I reply.

“Oh, you do home care,” that person responds.

“No, I do not do home care. I make house calls, there’s a big difference. My office follows me wherever I go and the world is my gym,” I state.

Under traditional home care, the person must meet Medicare’s definition of “homebound.” Home care services are generally aimed at improving to the point that someone may be transitioned to another level of care such as outpatient therapy.

This works for some people, but in many instances, the person is functioning at a level that home care services are not needed at all and, often times, the person that needs skilled therapy after home health never actually accesses it.

This is where FOX is different.

The patients that I work with do not need to be confined to their home, and the goal is to thrive and live again!

The only criterion that my patients need to meet is the need of the skill of a PT to improve or maintain their current level of function or to prevent further decline in function.

I complete a thorough outpatient-level evaluation and identify patients’ deficits and personal goals. This allows me to tailor my patients’ plan of care to exactly what they need in order to achieve their goals without the limitation of staying “homebound.” The outpatient model, under Medicare Part B, is highly cost effective at restoring function through evidence-based, clinically-appropriate dosing, as well as effective in reducing the risk of hospitalization.

Let me introduce you to Ann.

Ann was a dancer who stood tall and whirled with an ease and elegance that’s rarely seen. That was in her younger days, though.

Many years before I met her, she had an illness which left her with very weak muscles and chronic fatigue.

For most of Ann’s adult life, she was able to manage things on her own. Although, her stooped posture and weak muscles made it difficult.

As she got older, getting around on her own became harder. She became isolated and stopped going out. The more she stayed in her home, the weaker she got and she slowly lost function until Ann simply stopped being an active participant in her life.

Ann did not have a recent illness. She didn’t have a recent hospitalization. She was not considered homebound. So, she did not qualify for traditional home care. Yet, she sorely needed rehabilitative services in her home.

Thankfully, Ann’s doctor knew that he could refer her to FOX Rehabilitation and we would bring the therapy services right to her door.

When I first met Ann, she was walking with a walker inside her home and she was afraid to go outside, but I told her, “Outside is where life happens. Let’s give it a try!” On the first day, we walked down her driveway and back to the house. She was exhausted from that short outing.

Over the months that Ann and I worked together, we worked on her strength, balance, endurance, and, most importantly, her confidence until one day we were able to put away her walker for good. We started climbing the stairs so she could visit with her family and we started taking walks all the way around her block with only a cane for support.

I will never forget the day I arrived at Ann’s house and she was grinning from ear to ear. For the first time in over a year, Ann had been able to go to the store to purchase her own holiday gifts for her family. She was once again an active participant in her own life and it was the best gift Ann could have ever given me.

I had brought my world to Ann and wound up bringing Ann back to the world.

In the end, I know if Ann had been limited to traditional home care services, she would have become homebound and stayed homebound. That’s what makes FOX so unique: We understand that outpatient therapy does not need to be provided in a traditional outpatient setting.

When a person goes to their doctor and demonstrates a decline in function, they don’t have to wait.

They don’t have to fall. They don’t have to have a hospitalization. They don’t have to go anywhere else to get the services they need.

Instead, with FOX, we use our clinically-excellent care to evaluate, assess, and treat people in their own environment to help them achieve what they once thought impossible.

The people featured in the photo are real FOX clinicians and patients. Though, these are not the people mentioned in this article.