Value of old-fashioned home visits

Thanks for the review of the hoarding situation.¹ I have been guilty of assuming that if patients show up to my office appearing fairly well maintained that I don’t need to probe much further about their collecting practices. I can see that the home visit takes on new meaning in checking on patients who might not be up front about their hoarding. I will make an effort to remind trainees that we do gain a lot of valuable information from visiting patients in their homes, and we shouldn’t neglect this part of our practices.

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