Hospital Discharge Appointment Information
The Importance of Hospital Discharge Follow-Up Appointments
At Natesan Medical Group, we care about your health and well-being. If you go to the Emergency Room or are admitted to the hospital, we want to ensure that you have appropriate follow up after you are discharged.
Our team of providers is able to see you within a week of your hospital or ER discharge. We monitor when and where our patients are admitted, and will typically contact you to set up appropriate follow-up upon discharge from the hospital. If you do not hear from us, please contact our office to schedule an appointment.
The visit after a hospital discharge is a special type of appointment called a Transitional Care Visit. At this appointment, your medical provider will review your hospital records, prescribe/refill/adjust medications, coordinate appropriate follow-up with any necessary specialists, and generally ensure that you have a smooth transition to home.
At this visit, your provider will also ensure that you have home health or physical therapy services arranged, if needed. If you need to follow up with a specialist such as a surgeon or cardiologist, your provider can also help to arrange this. Your primary care provider is your main point of contact in navigating the post-discharge process.
When discharging from the hospital, the best follow-up time with your primary care provider is within 1 week. If this is too soon, try to schedule this visit within 2 weeks. It has been shown that hospital readmission rates decrease when you have close follow-up with your primary care provider. Not only does this appointment keep unnecessary hospitalizations down, it helps keep you safer and healthier.
So, the next time you or a loved one is discharged from the hospital or the ER, give us a call and schedule a follow up visit as soon as possible! We look forward to hearing from you!