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What to Expect Going from ICU to LTAC (Long Term Acute Care)! Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care!

Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

Today is actually a tip for our clients in the U.S., and the tip today is, “What to expect going from ICU or intensive care to LTAC.”

Now, I have answered that question in many other videos, but maybe I haven’t asked that question so directly because I’ve been giving case studies about when clients go from ICU to LTAC. What happens? I’ve been giving many, many case studies here on these videos, but today I want to answer it more directly because it is actually a question that one of our loyal clients asked this week because we’re helping them keeping their loved one in ICU instead of going to LTAC.

And the client said, “Well, what can I actually expect if my loved one goes from ICU to LTAC?” Well, here it is.

Well, the first thing is you shouldn’t even contemplate going to LTAC because you have another thing coming if you’re going from ICU to LTAC. And here is why, so picture this your loved one is in ICU on life support. In this situation, our client’s loved one is on a ventilator with a tracheostomy, is on dialysis. So that’s already two forms of life support. Mechanical ventilation with the tracheostomy and dialysis. That’s two forms of life support.

Now, there are no other forms of life support at the moment as far as we can see, but it’s true already. And that is what keeps patients in ICU. Now picture this, when patients are on life support, they need highly trained skills around them. I.e. intensive care doctors, intensive care nurses, in the U.S., respiratory therapists. Allied health such as physical therapy, occupational therapy and the list goes on, speech therapy. These patients are on life support. They are as vulnerable as they ever can be.

Now, in the U.S. ICUs want to send patients out to LTAC, LTAC stands for long term acute care. Well, they might as well call it the nursing home cause that’s what it is. It’s not even the better version of a nursing home, but it gets worse. Once your loved one goes from ICU to LTAC, in ICU, the nurse-to-patient ratio is usually 1:1, maybe 1:2, in LTAC the nurse-to-patient ratio will drop down to 1:4, 1:5 overnight, sometimes 1:8, 1:10, right, for someone that needs intensive care. So LTAC are designed to save money. They’re not designed to meet clinical needs. So gets worse when you go to LTAC, those nurses are not ICU trained. How can someone that’s not ICU trained possibly wean someone off a ventilator? Because that’s what LTACs advertise. When you look at their websites and they’re saying they’re specialized in weaning patients off the ventilator and the tracheostomy. Well, please look at the online reviews from families. What they are saying. Look at our case studies.

When we deal with families begging us, literally begging us, helping us get their loved ones out of LTACs back into ICU. From a medical point of view, there’s often one doctor for 30 patients coming in once a day, and no doctors overnight, that is for patients on life support.

Now next, what we have seen over and over again when patients go from ICU to LTAC, ICU is telling families, “Oh, you go to LTAC, they specialize in weaning your loved one off the ventilator. They do all the physical therapy, they get your loved one, from A to B pretty quickly”, and then nothing happens, it is bait and switch, right.

Now, what we also see is that when patients go from ICU to LTAC after a couple of weeks nothing has happened. No mobilization, no weaning off the ventilator, stalemate. And then the LTAC say to them, “Oh, your loved one only has 30 days. Now, we’re getting ready to start looking for a skilled nursing facility.” It’s going from bad to worse in no time. That’s how bad it is. And we’ve seen it over and over and over and over again.

It’s time that LTACs get exposed for what they are. They are not even a better version of a nursing home and they’re here once again to save money and not to meet clinical needs for a patient and the family. There’s another thing that we’ve seen over the years.

Sometimes ICUs want to send their patients to LTAC 2-3 hours away from the location of the family. And they basically said, “Well, that’s the only LTAC we have, that’s where we’re going to send your loved one. Madness. Absolute madness. What about having a patient close to their families? What happened to that? Now, there’s enough research out there to say that families need to be close to their loved ones, common sense as far as I’m concerned.

The good news is we have helped so many families stay in ICU instead of going to LTAC. And there’s plenty of videos out there about that today. I just wanted to give you a synopsis of what to expect. And I’m sure that again, I’m sure there’s other people maybe you want to comment below what you’ve seen when you had a loved one in LTAC. I’m sure you’ve got some horror stories to share here as well. Just leave your comments below.

So, if you have a loved one in intensive care and you need help, especially if you want to avoid LTAC, please contact us at intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or simply send us an email to [email protected].

We also have a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care at intensivecarehotline.com. When you click on the membership link or by going to intensivecaresupport.org directly. In the membership, you have access to me and my team 24 hours a day in a membership area and via email and we answer all questions, intensive care related.

I also offer one on one consulting for families in intensive care over the phone, via Skype, WhatsApp, Zoom, whichever medium works best for you. And I ask the doctors all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking, but you must ask so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

I have worked in intensive care and critical care for over 20 years in three different countries. I have also worked as a nurse unit manager for over 5 years in intensive care. And I’ve been advocating and consulting for families in intensive care for the last 10 years, for over 10 years as a matter of fact, here at intensivecarehotline.com.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams so that you don’t get walked all over, making sure you have a strategy going into the meeting, making sure you have someone on your team that understands intensive care inside out just as much as they do. If you don’t have that, I can assure you, you will fight an uphill battle. I will obviously talk to you and your families, make sure you have strategies when you deal with an intensive care team, so that once again you make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence.

We also offer medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. We also offer medical record reviews after intensive care, if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure or if you simply suspect medical negligence.

If you like my videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care. Click the like button, click the notification bell. Comment below what you want to see next, especially if you have experience with your loved one going to LTAC, what’s the outcome? What’s your experience? We want to know about it and share the video with your friends and family, so they know that LTAC needs to be avoided.

Thanks for watching.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com, and I will talk to you in a few days.

Take care for now.