My father was recently released from Advocated Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, and, for simplicity's sake, we chose Advocate Home Health Services for day nurse home health care and a physical therapist for up to one month after his release. The physical therapist they sent was great; he showed up on time and was extremely good with my father, who is 85 years old.
On the other hand, the nurse assigned to handle my father spent over an hour on her first visit to enter all sorts of data on her laptop PC, which, one would assume, would have been provided by Advocate Lutheran General to Advocate Home Health Services. But no; why do it once when you can milk the system of more money. In the 90 minutes maximum that she was there, she took his temperature and vital signs and told him to do this and that, but the one thing that would have really been necessary was to bathe my father. But again, noooo. That would be done by another person, a home health aide.
The home health aide, after my father's release from the hospital, never did show up. Ever.
When I called several times regarding this situation, I was told beginning on July 3 that it would not be possible because of the holiday weekend to have anyone come out; the manager of the assigned nurse would have to handle this scheduling for a home health aide.
It is now July 5, and nothing ever happened.
What an outfit. Had we known how bad the coordination between the various parts would be, even within the Advocate group, we would have looked elsewhere. And we STRONGLY advise everyone reading this to do likewise.
Substandard coverage and coordination is the best label that could be applied to this arrangement.
Pros: Excellent Physical Therapist
Cons: Worst Follow-Through with Home Health Aide Coordination
more