Paul waited for hours after his doctor authorized for a nurse or therapist to provide him in home care from Bright Star. First it was finance staff on vacation then after 3 way call with Medicare BC insurance. Finally got confirmation of care visits and he waited day after day at the door 🚪 waiting for a nurse to show up until we had to rush him into an emergency 🚨 room for medical neglect. emergency surgery on kidney stones kidney failure never treated by in home care. After March 7. Never monitored by physical therapy or in home care staff. Or occupational therapy. He’s handicapped.
What is the next step to reporting this agency so another referral is not made endangering another patient? The next person who lives alone may die from neglect if no one shows up.
"JoAnn, you are correct. As Handel on the Law would say, they have NO CASE. We either go to the hospital ER when we need to go or we do not and when we do not there is no case. In home nursing care would do nothing but look at symptoms and on the face of them perhaps send the Paul to ER, perhaps wait another day which would be too late. It is always iffy when and if we get to ER on time. It is always a call, whether family or RN when and if you go to the ER. This may have been "wrong" that he had to wait for in home RN check, but it didn't likely kill him or cause stones or failure. Sounds like quite an ill man. Sad case, but no lawyer will touch it. Totally unproveable that any different outcome would have occurred I am thinking."
In home care, just my opinion, cannot do anything about kidney stones or kidney failure. Kidney stones usually you just need to wait for them to pass. In the meantime, you cut out certain foods and take medication. Kidney failure a nurse could have done nothing but sent Paul to the ER. Again, Paul would need to be doing certain things to prevent further failure, eventually having dialysis. When u have in home care, rarely is a Nurse there every day. Same with an aide. Therapy, though, is there usually PT morning, OT afternoon with my Mom. Once the therapy is completed the client is discharged. Medicare pays for intermittent care but not every day care.
What does Paul need a nurse for? Short term or long term? If longterm, he may need to hire his own nurse. That will be very expensive hiring an RN. Medicaid may help with an aide but not an RN.
My Mom almost got kidney failure because a home caregiver made a mistake. The caregiver used the wrong size equipment, which almost directly resulted in kidney failure. The only reason it didn't, is because another caregiver the next day noticed the mistake and quickly corrected it in time. A few more hours would have resulted in kidney failure and ER. Now we have big signs in my Mom's room, to never use the wrong size equipment.
Paul is not the first.
Be aware also that many lawyers are crooks. Choose wisely. Be careful also of retaliation. Such companies (Bright Star...) do retaliate in subtle ways. Make sure you don't need to use them in the future, so you're fine with burning bridges. You can also report Bright Star to your state governor, write a bad review, contact news outlets...
A similar thing happened to my Mom. Hired agency caregiver didn't turn up. My Mom can survive only 5 hours without a caregiver. She has a medical condition that needs to be tended to every X hours (the agency knew that). I called another caregiver company and saved my Mom. But it was a terrible thing to go through. My Mom could have died. We fired the old agency.