Discharging a Previous Therapist's Patients Whom I've Never Treated?

[dannibambi]

Hello, I have a question about d/c: I work for a small-practice clinic in which I am the only therapist (and a recent grad) and the owners of the practice are physicians. They just told me to d/c the previous therapist's patients from last year, whom I have never seen or treated. The patients whom I carried over, I re-evaled when I first started working there at the beginning of this year, but they want me to d/c patients I have never seen, who stopped attending therapy in October/November 2018. Is this common practice? I have not been able to find any information anywhere relating to patients I have not taken care over for, but it does not sound like something I should do because I don't know anything about them or their case. I practice in California, if that helps. Thank you in advance for your help.

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[ya1]

I am in CA too. I have done d/c of patients I never saw. Mainly when I started a new job and a PT who was treating those patients left the company and I "inherited" her patients as a new PT. Registries do the same thing when they are hired as a substitute for a PT who is on vacation -they do d/cs of patients they have never seen. I assume it's legal since I have seen this practice in more than 1 clinic. And you sign you name there and everyone can see, so everyone will know you did d/c only. You just look through weakly notes and write in d/c information that you found there. It is ok to say "unknown" if let's say you cannot determine if this or that goal was met 1 year ago.

 

[truthseeker]

When I do it, and I have, I just say they stopped coming, there was no new information, please refer to the last reassessment dated X. Patient is discharged from PT services.

 

[Fiveoboy11]

Not a big deal as far as I know. I've done lots like that. Just be objective, keep it simple, concise, don't waste time

 

[dannibambi]

Thank you all!