Discharge From The Hospital

2023 Author: Wallace Forman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 18:19

The day of discharge

Once inpatient treatment has been completed, your hospital doctor will have a final conversation with you and announce the discharge date. On the day of discharge, you will receive a patient letter for your doctor with the most important information about your stay. Upon request, you will also receive a confirmation of your stay from the hospital. If care is necessary after your stay in hospital, the care team will issue you a nursing discharge letter.

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• Discharge letter
• Discharge management helps with care needs
• What to do if there is a need for care
• The first visit to the doctor after the hospital stay

Discharge letter

On the day of discharge, you will receive either a provisional or final patient letter for your doctor with the most important information about your stay: reason for admission, diagnosis, therapy, medication and recommendations for further action. If check-ups are planned, the dates for them are already recorded in the letter. You should also know what to do and whom to turn to if you have any complaints.

The discharge letter contains your diagnoses, information about examinations and their results, and your treatment. It is mainly used to provide all the people involved with your further treatment with the necessary information and recommendations from the hospital. As a patient, you decide who should receive your discharge letter. As a rule, this will be the referring doctor or your family doctor or specialist doctor. You can also request a copy of your discharge letter yourself. If the final patient letter is not ready on the day of discharge, it will be sent by post or electronically.

You can find detailed information under The discharge letter.

Upon request, you will also receive a confirmation of your stay from the hospital. On the day of discharge, the contribution to subsistence costs is due, which you can either pay directly in the hospital in cash (sometimes also possible with an ATM card) or with a payment slip. Transport by ambulance home from the hospital is chargeable if there is no medical necessity - the patient is no longer "sick". Please ask your health insurance company whether it will cover the transport costs in your case. The transport will be organized for you by the hospital.

Discharge management helps with care needs

After the hospital stay, there may be a need for further care. Perhaps the apartment needs to be adapted to your needs, a wheelchair may be necessary, a cure or rehabilitation stay may be planned.

This is where discharge management comes into play. It is carried out by nurses or social workers. The discharge manager organizes the time after discharge, puts together your individual care package and guides you through the health and social system.

The discharge management is responsible for this:

• Organization of mobile services (home help, mobile home nursing, menu service),
• Obtaining aids such as wheelchairs, rollators or bath lifts,
• Obtaining permits for spa stays or rehabilitation stays,
• Issuing applications for exemption from prescription fees or care allowance,
• Contacting aid organizations, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the municipal authorities, the district administration or self-help groups and
• Clarify general financial issues.

What discharge managers cannot do:

• intervene in medically prescribed treatments,
• Take on the tasks of aid organizations (e.g. care) and
• Influencing the approval of a benefit (although it may speed up the process).

What to do if there is a need for care

Short-term or long-term care may be necessary after the hospital stay. In this case, you will receive a nursing discharge letter from your nursing team, the information of which is intended to be of assistance to caregivers outside the hospital and to your family doctor. The aftercare is organized by the discharge management staff. Depending on the care needs, there are special offers, such as:

• Round-the-clock care in nursing homes or at home,
• Short-term care for a few weeks,
• outpatient day care from around 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
• Mobile services for the home: home help, mobile home nursing, visiting services, menu service.

You decide which of these offers is suitable for you before your discharge in the hospital together with the discharge management staff. The services mentioned are chargeable and must be borne by the person being cared for. The costs vary depending on the provider. People in need of care have a legal right to care allowance, which covers at least part of these costs. You can find important information about care and care allowance at help.gv.at under care provision.

Information on the subject of care and support can be found on the website of the Federal Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection.

The first visit to the doctor after the hospital stay

When you go to your doctor for the first time after your stay in hospital, you will first of all discuss the hospital's patient letter. This includes suggestions for further treatment and medication intake. Your family doctor will check this list of medications and will then write you a prescription. If there are medications that require a head doctor, your doctor will obtain approval for them. If the health insurance company approves the medication, your doctor will note this on the prescription, which every pharmacy accepts.

It happens that the chief medical service refuses a prescription. In this case you should ask about the reason - either from your doctor or directly from your social security organization. The medication is often rejected because there is no adequate medical justification. If this justification is submitted or improved, the prescription is usually approved.