Presbyterian Healthcare at Home in Albuquerque

I was wholly unimpressed with Presbyterian Hospice. The people were nice enough, but the unit seemed very disorganized. I was promised callbacks that never happened, given conflicting information from various people, etc. For example, the admitting nurse told me they were "required" to use Walgreen's for controlled substance prescriptions due to a contractual commitment, but a subsequent nurse told me they "preferred" to use Walgreens but that a lorazepam prescription could have been called to my preferred pharmacy. That would have been helpful to know, since Walgreen's was out of stock on lorazepam for several days - when my mother would have welcomed its calming effects. Walgreen's, of course, was a horror to deal with. To say that Walgreens is uncaring is the understatement of all time. And nobody at Pres would help us with the Walgreen's end of things. Since Walgreen's was out-of-network for my mom, I ended up paying cash for the two prescriptions I did manage to pick up. Also regarding prescription meds, apparently Pres Hospice contracts with some mail order pharmacy on the east coast to provide the standard "comfort kit" of medications for dying people - and the comfort kit arrived 12 hours after my mom had actually expired, which is literally laughable. The only thing Pres had to say about that was "the medication was delayed due to weather problems on the east cost." Um...thanks for that explanation? Does Pres Hospice really not "get" that some people die within hours or days of being admitted (as was the case with my mom)? Not all hospice patients have the luxury of time to await comfort medications, for heaven's sake. Why isn't there an alternate plan for such situations? And I have many questions about the legality of denying patients pharmacy choice by forcing them to use Walgreen's. In fact, I raised this question to hospice admin on a call, and they told me the hospice director would call me. I didn't expect it, nor did it happen. LOL All in all, I feel we would have been equally served by giving Mom some whiskey and a stick to bite on while she died. That's about the level of service we received from Pres Hospice, anyway. In short: if you have the luxury of time, please evaluate your hospice options. I wouldn't recommend Pres.
Feb 3rd, 2024

My father started hospice with a wonderful nurse from Pres. His aide who gave him baths was the best. The social worker at Pres Hospital who sent my father to hospice with Pres did not give us the full or correct information about billing for hospice. We had a temporary social worker with Pres Hospice who was filling in for the regular hospice social worker. When she tried to get information from the billing department about our billing questions, the billing people at Pres would not talk with her. So our first nurse limited how often she would come to see my father since we did not know how much we would be charged and could afford. I finally figured out how to contact the chairman of the board at Presbyterian and asked her about billing. She had the head of billing at Pres call me to let me know what was happenong. He never could explain to me why he and his staff refused to talk with the temporary social worker in their hospice program about our questions. My dad lived about two weeks after being discharged fromm Presbyterian Hospital to Presbyterian Hospice. Halfway through those two weeks, Pres Hospice switched my dad from the good nurse who started with him to one who would openly ask me and my brothers in front of my father why he wouldn't die already. When my dad did die, I called the contact number for Pres Hospice. The man with whom I spoke would not do anything to help us immediately, He said he would have somebody call us. Eventually a woman called me about 45 minutes after my Dad had left his body. She said that she would send a nurse to pronounce his passing. It took three hours for that nurse to show up. We asked for Pres Hospice to send the on-call chaplain bto our grieving family. That person never came. The next day I got a phone call from some woman who said that it was her job to call the chaplain after she received a message to do so from the phone death scheduler woman. This woman said that, although she was on call the night my father died, she slept through the phone death scheduler woman's call and message, so she never requested that the chaplain be sent to us. Presbyterian proved to be a horrible Home Hospice. I have made sure that none of my insurances will pay for anybody to put me with Presbyterian Hospice when my time comes. There are other and better Hospice facilities in Albuquerque.
Jan 15th, 2024

Very wonderful experience. Their schedulers, nurses and doctors took very good care of our family members.
Jan 5th, 2024

Probably the worst hospice in Albuquerque or the surrounding area. Its not the nurses or the CNA's. Its the work load. These people do not have the time to care for loved one in the fashion they deserve. You are much better going local and staying local.
Dec 30th, 2023

Sep 12th, 2023