The first step in the process of completing a home health evaluation visit is accepting a patient from the agency. Whether you are working directly for an agency or through a contract agency, you need to be abundantly clear from the beginning about what you will and will not tolerate. Being pushed around by agencies will put a bad taste in your mouth. If you establish clear expectations from the beginning of employment, you will have the fewest issues in this area.

Most agencies will ask you to accept patients through a secure messaging platform, but some will use an electronic health record that directly requests you to take the visit.

Before you accept any patients REMEMBER: 

1. You should accept patients in your area until you reach full productivity. 

2. If asked to leave your area, you need to be certain of compensation prior to accepting the patient. This may be in extra "points" or in additional compensation per mile or per incident when driving out of your area.

3. Don’t feel bad about declining patients when you’re at full productivity and aren’t interested in seeing extra. 

4. Learn to say “no, sorry” from the start so there is no confusion about your resolve to not take on another patient. 

5. If you are PRN, you can always decline patients and have no obligation to see them for any reason.

6. If an agency assigns you a patient that you did not accept and you do not want to see the patient, immediately inform them to remove the visit and state that you will not be completing the visit. Some EHRs allow you to send back the visit in the software.