Nobody likes to stay in hospital and patients eagerly wait for their day of discharge. After spending days or weeks in hospital the doctor’s order to discharge brings cheers to patient and their family members. The phase of troublesome treatment in hospital is over and patient wishes to go home as soon as possible. But wait, here are few things which must be taken care of before leaving the hospital to save you any troubles later on.
1. Get your discharge summary –
Although it is a routine for any hospital to hand over the discharge summary of patient before they leave, it gets missed many time. The discharge summary contains all important details related to patient’s disease, tests results, condition at the time of discharge, treatments given, further treatments to be taken and follow up advice. This is a very important piece of medical document that will be required for future medical treatments. In hospitals the process of discharge is pretty complex and preparation of discharge summary can take time and delay the entire discharge process. Hence, sometimes to avoid delay staff may let the patient go without discharge summary. Hence, as a patient you must ask for discharge summary and ensure it is with you before you leave hospital.
2. Collect documents related to health insurance claims –
If you have health insurance and have not availed the cashless facility, make sure you collect necessary documents related to treatment for settling your claim with your insurer. You must enquire from insurance agency about specific documents required which generally includes, detailed itemized bills of treatment, individual investigation results, statement of doctor/hospital and of-course discharge summary. Some insurance agency also asks for a copy of complete medical record of the patient during the treatment. As a patient you have a right to get all these documents from the hospital.3. Final talk with the treating doctor –
The treating doctor or the consultant are busy people and they generally leave the discharge formalities to be completed by assistant doctors. However, he/she is the person who knows best about the condition of the patient and further course of treatment required. So, make sure to have a final discussion with the treating doctor to get an assurance about patient’s health and treatment.4. Collect necessary information –
As a patient you must ensure to get following information from the doctor/nurse at the time of discharge
a.
Medications to be taken at home
b.
Preventions to be taken (like food, activities
etc.)
c.
Date of follow up, if required
d.
If the situation of patient worsen, how to get
emergency help
e.
Signs and symptoms which can indicate patients
to consult back
f.
Any other special or specific instruction
related to patient’s disease
5.
At the time of discharge all payments need to be settled. While settling the bills, take care of following
a. Check if the bill is right and error free.
b. Check if you have received the refund for unused
medicines returned to hospital
c. Check if the bill has reduced the advance amount or any security deposit paid by you
c. Check if the bill has reduced the advance amount or any security deposit paid by you
