Provider Services
May 2022 Patient Letters
April 28, 2022–Our VNSNY colleagues continue to prove how resilient, dedicated and just plain amazing the entire VNSNY organization is! The following are excerpts from a few of the many recent letters, phone calls, and emails we’ve received from grateful patients and clients as well as family members that reflect an outstanding consumer experience. Bronx Thank You for the Wonderful Care! “I am writing to thank you for the wonderful care I received from your nurse, Sultana Alibasic,” wrote one Bronx home care patient. “My primary care physician connected me to VNSNY to care for a huge open wound that did not heal properly from abdominal surgery. Sultana treated me almost daily for over a month and would not discharge me until the wound was 100% healed.” The patient described Sultana as kind, caring and professional. “I am very grateful to Sultana and always looked forward to her visits. She wasn’t just
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Cutting-Edge VNSNY Program Delivers Hospital-Level Services at Home
June 22, 2020–For the patient, an older woman diagnosed with COVID-19 in the Mount Sinai emergency department whose husband had just died of the illness, the path ahead was challenging. But there was a bright spot: she would be able to continue her treatment at home, where she most wanted to be, while still getting hospital-level care and attention through VNSNY’s unique Hospitalization at Home program. Delivered in collaboration between Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS), Contessa Health and VNSNY, the program’s hospital-level services include IV infusions, blood draws, wound care, nebulizer treatment, inpatient-level physical therapy, and X-rays, as well as patient and caregiver education. “For those who can be safely managed at home, the program is effective and comprehensive,” says Denise Simmonds, a VNSNY Home Care nurse specially trained to provide Hospitalization at Home care to patients. “We find a way to get them the care they need, when they need it.
The Brooklyn South Hospice Team: Extraordinary Clinicians Working Tirelessly for Their Patients
June 10, 2020–Diane Blair, Supervisor for VNSNY’s Brooklyn South Hospice team, recalls a phone call that came into the office: “Do you have someone there named Vitaliy, a nurse, very tall?” When the answer was yes, the voice on the phone shouted to waiting family members, “This is the place, this is where we want Grandpa to go!” The tall nurse, Coordinator of Care (COC) Vitaliy Generalov, makes a big impact on communities in and around Coney Island, bringing compassion and expertise to patients and families facing end of life. “I love hospice care,” says Vitaliy, a Belarusian immigrant who communicates in their own language with the sizeable Russian-speaking community in his area of Brooklyn, as well as working with families from many other cultures. “It’s really doing two jobs at one time—delivering the clinical care and also educating families every step of the way, talking to them about life, death, family,
CMHS’s WeCARE Staff—Providing Support and Hope for the Most Vulnerable New Yorkers
June 4, 2020–For extremely vulnerable New Yorkers struggling with mental and physical health challenges, trust is often the first barrier to getting needed care. Case managers with the WeCARE Wellness program run by VNSNY’s Community Mental Health Services (CMHS) work hard to build and maintain that trust with their clients—a skill that’s especially important now, with all the uncertainty and upheaval from the coronavirus pandemic. When a young mother living in a homeless shelter experienced COVID-like symptoms, for example, her first reaction was to keep the symptoms to herself out of fear that she’d be asked to leave the shelter. But she had enough trust to confide in Angela Corre, her WeCARE Wellness Case Manager. Angela immediately connected the young woman with a primary care physician. It turned out that the client didn’t have the virus but was just experiencing a flare-up of her allergies. She was prescribed new medications and her
VNSNY Heroes of 2020: Physicians Database Coordinators: Keeping the Care Moving
June 2, 2020–“I have come to heal the brokenhearted/And to give your heart a song.” So goes the gospel song, “More Abundantly,” that Maude Tolbert is listening to at her home office these days in her work as a VNSNY Physicians Database Coordinator. The tight-knit Physicians Database team is responsible for credentialing physicians, tracking down their contact and enrollment information to make sure that patient treatment continues uninterrupted and that VNSNY receives proper compensation for the care it delivers. This includes checking physicians’ current standing with PECOS (Provider Enrollment and Chain/Ownership System) and OPRA (providers who Order, Prescribe, Refer or Attend Medicaid patients). All this helps VNSNY provide seamless patient care and reimbursement for services in the constantly changing environment of the COVID-19 emergency. “When we do our job efficiently, there should be no lapses in patient service,” says Maude, who has been with the team for 15 years. “The doctor’s made the
One Social Worker’s Extraordinary Journey to Help Families in Need
May 28, 2020–As a little girl growing up in Brooklyn, Debra Thomas used to bring an extra sandwich to kindergarten in case a classmate didn’t have enough for lunch. Now, she is helping kids in need on a much larger scale as Program Manager for three key VNSNY Community Mental Health Services (CMHS) programs for children and families. “I love my work,” says Debra. “The people we serve are too often forgotten. If they do get services, they’re used to people telling them, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that.’ We come in and say, ‘What do you need?’ The families are so grateful for that.” The CMHS programs she manages—two short-term rapid intervention initiatives, the Children’s Mobile Crisis Team and the Home-Based Crisis Intervention program, and the school-based Promise Zone preventive program—always look for opportunities to cross-refer to each other. This collaboration has become even more seamless with
A Special Package from VNSNY Hospice Sends a Message of Caring to U.S. Veterans for Memorial Day
May 27, 2020–Observed on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day commemorates the men and women who died while serving our country. May is also National Military Appreciation Month, a time set aside by Congress to honor the important role the U.S. Armed Forces have played in the history of our country. “One way to honor the memory of fallen heroes who have served our country is to support those veterans and military families walking among us today, and help them live well and be all that they can be, each and every day,” notes Joe Vitti, Supervisor of the VNSNY Hospice Veterans Program. A U.S. Army veteran himself, Joe and his colleagues, VNSNY Hospice Veterans Liaisons Erica Wigley and Sung Yoon, know firsthand how challenging this Memorial Day is for many of the servicemen and servicewomen they engage with in their community outreach activities. With social distancing mandates in place, many veterans find themselves more isolated than usual—a difficult situation, especially for those veterans who
During the Pandemic, Partners in Care Home Health Aides Continue Providing Vital Care to Their Clients
May 26, 2020–Each morning, 101-year-old Evelyn* received a radiant greeting: “Hello gorgeous, hello beautiful.” That’s because Shaunae Phaire, her Partners in Care Home Health Aide, was there to rouse her client from bed and help her face the day. “Once your feet hit the floor, you sit up and think, ‘thank God, I got up this morning and I can move,’” Shaunae says. When she first started caring for Evelyn last November, she notes, her client was in bed all day. But with Shaunae’s help, Evelyn soon found her days full of light and life. Even after the COVID-19 coronavirus came to the nursing home where Evelyn lived, Shaunae continued to visit her daily, suiting up in an N95 respirator and gown and putting on so much Purell that “you never realize you’re putting it on anymore.” And though Evelyn was now isolated in her room, Shaunae still made sure her client
The Brooklyn West VNSNY Hospice Team: ‘We’re All in This Together!’
May 21, 2020–With the large number of patients dying from COVID-19 in New York City and community resources stretched thin by the coronavirus pandemic, the teamwork at the heart of interdisciplinary hospice care has never been more important. For VNSNY’s close-knit Brooklyn West Hospice Team, this collaborative approach is helping them provide care and comfort to distraught families under even the most difficult circumstances. When a young woman’s grandmother recently died of COVID-19 and she had to wait for the funeral home to remove the body from the home, VNSNY Hospice Social Worker Carolyn Gartner and Spiritual Care Counselor Anna Jenkins took turns checking in on the granddaughter regularly by telephone to ensure that she didn’t feel alone. Remaining present in this way for families in dire need “can be exhausting,” Carolyn says. “That’s why we work as a team. It’s invaluable.” This hospice teamwork is essential in order to support patients
A Video Message to All Partners in Care Home Health Aides from Senior Vice President Jennifer Brullo
May 18, 2020–During this coronavirus pandemic, no one has shown more courage and dedication than the Home Health Aides of Partners in Care, who have continued to go into the community to care for their clients. In this video, Senior Vice President Jennifer Brullo expresses her thanks and gratitude to our heroic HHAs.