How to strengthen your continence program
How to strengthen your continence program
If you plan to set up a women’s continence service, do your homework first. Several elements must be in place so your first clients won’t feel as if they’re your practice cases:
• Billing and reimbursement procedures. Look into those first, says Janis Luft, NP, MS, director of pelvic floor rehabilitation at the University of California at San Francisco Women’s Continence Center. "It’s the problem that is plaguing everybody now." she says.
• Active referral networks. Physicians are more likely to discuss bladder problems with women if they can refer them to a good treatment program. Visit OB/GYN and urologists’ offices. Luft does physician inservices to explain the options at her center.
• Dedicated practitioner on board. "You need someone who is a good teacher to explain and re-explain the procedures. You can’t just hand someone a piece of paper with instructions for pelvic floor exercises and say Go fix your bladder,’" Luft says.
Pam Gillaspie, RN, program director of the Maturity Center at the Women’s Clinic of Lincoln (NE), says the provider should be "interested in treating women over 50, since most of the patients fall into that age group."
• Community presence dispensing hope. Though women know little about incontinence, worry looms, according to a recent survey, (See chart, p. 99.) They’re hungry for information. Luft’s community presentations at events such as health fairs and women’s workshops bring a weekly stream of 36 patients into her center, 12 to 18 of whom are first timers. ß
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