My father had an appointment and the he was at the doctor's office and they refuse to see him because they wanted the nursing home that he currently at the sign a form stated they will be financially responsible. My father has insurance, the nursing home didn't sign the forms and they refuse to see him and turn him away he was there in the office. My mother was there and was willing to sign the financial forms but they said no. Can they do that turn him away because he in a nursing home?
It may be that the issue is an assigned insurance benefit (like an HMO) that the nursing home administrates (holds). Means the patient must receive care from the Nh.
There may be ways around this requirement. Say, for example, the Nh cannot provide the care necessary, the patient could get permission to go outside of the program.
Another aspect is, the Nh has the meds, the records. If a patient seeks outside care (with a prescription), the potential for Rx abuse is greater, and an outside doctor would not want to be placed in a subordinate position of working for the Nh or cross referencing their care with his care.
Here's what I do know. A person can't just go to a doctor every day, as an exaggerated example, for primary care. There are rules for follow-up. Break those rules by going too often, and Medicare will not pay. It's possible the doctor's office has been burned by a nursing home patient having unknowingly had dr visits too close together. At the nursing home itself.
To specifically answer your question, a doctor is under no obligation to see any particular patient.
Call the doctors office and get the straight scoop.
Usually once an eider becomes a resident of a nursing home, the medical director of the NH becomes their MD. All care kinda needs to go through the NH to be carried out, like medications parceled out & given & like therapy scheduled through the NH, so it makes sense that this is done. Because of this and outside MD will not see a NH resident as a patient. Could the form have included some wording that implied that the NH was responsible for all aspects of care both financial & medical follow though? I can totally see that being paperwork as a requirement for the private practice MDs and that a NH would not ever sign off on it as it could be a conflict of care plans that is not do-able by the NH or its staff.
For my mom, the medical director of moms 1st NH was also staff within the gerontology group that mom was seeing the prior decade. He actually wrote the orders for SNF needed for mom, so in theory all care plans would dovetail. Mom did still see for an annual visit her old orthopedist & ENT the first year with OT orders from one & RXs from the other but after that all came from the NH MD. There was a memo of some sort on all records going to NH, I remember signing off on. My mom moved from IL to a NH without coming from a hospital stay & also bypassed the AL stage, so this could have made a difference on all this too.
Her retina specialist would not see her once she moved into a NH.