Can a doctor prevent me from bringing my parents home to live?

First , I will say do the Research on everything yourself, do not and I stress do not call Elder Services or the Ubudsmen and you may even be taking your chances speaking with an Elder Lawyer because most of them are in the money making business of being Guardians, Guardians as well are not there to protect anything they are there to steal everything when the courts step in and decides to give all control over to Elder Services where they say " Hey let's just do some mini mental tests and diagnosis these people with Dementia" then they turn to the judge with nothing but this mini mental test results coming from a neuro psychologist. with no ACTUAL Medical Evidence and once that is said then everything is gone. Their lives and they are then locked away and no one can help them. no family member can go up against these people they will drain anyone in a court room just to get what they want and that is to take someone elses life and everything they have worked their life for just to line their own pockets. I know this first hand. my parents lost everything, I had moved back to my family home to help my parents and you want to know what I got.. I lost two of my dogs and both of my cats, everything that I owned, including the family home, I was tossed out onto the streets with nothing and these people made up all kinds of lies about anyone that tries to help and believe me they have no evidence of the things they are accusing of. sorry to rant so much yet it has been so frustrating and believe me if you go through this it is not something you will ever forget. as well I almost died because of what these people did to me and my family.

Grace- couple of things to think about.....if you as their dpoa/mpoa or your parent themselves sign out from a facility "AMA" (against medical advice), their health insurance could decline paying for any care from the minute after they leave the hospital or facility. This will be an enormous amount of $ as their needs based on your post & older posts are very very complex. Your parents have all sorts of assets too, so there will be things for creditors to go after if they don't pay thier bills.

The fact that their specialist doc is fighting you on doing this is probably noted in both their health charts & in detail. If you remove & take them home and they need ER care or readmit to a hospital, their charts are going to show AMA and the you were fully aware of the issue. You should expect to get APS involved and worst case scenario parents being made emergency wards of the state....you will be shut out of anything regarding your folks if this happens. It is a contentious situation and totally avoidable by you. Your not going to get much sympathy from APS or a court on "I know better".

About the properties, they have value, the fact that they aren't getting market rates rent or haven't been repaired to rent, etc.....doesn't matter. If need be they can be sold with $$$ used to pay for care. Care facilities or home health agencies aren't in the real estate biz, or want your parents home or rental property, BUT they expect to be paid as per terms of the private pay contract that you or your folks will have to sign off on. Home health care involving intubation & ventilators has got to be speciality care and expensive I would imagine....where I live (New Orleans) won't take these as the liability& difficulty if they have to be transported during hurricane season is too much to be worth doing.

It sounds like your folks have some degree of $$, this is fortunate as it provides for a window of time to get their property sold with proceeds of sale use to pay for care. They are at the point of imminent & complex need, the time for doing creative elder estate planning has passed....not to sound harsh but that is the reality imo based on what you have written.

They have non-exempt assets, so they cannot be eligible for medicaid till they become impoverished. It could well be that they will eventually outlive their $, so ask the facilities you look at if they take Medicaid.

Have to add -- it is probably not best that you'll be personally responsible for their bills. That is opening a huge can of worms that you may wish you'd kept closed.

BTW, LTCs that I know about want to be paid what they are owed monthly. I've never heard of one offering financing. You may work it out with a bank to borrow the money to pay the bill, then pay them some monthly. I am sure they would want some collateral, though. It would be a risky thing for them to do.

Oh, my. That is a lot in one question. It sounds like you need the advice of an elder care attorney.

First -- who is the medical proxy for your parents? If your parents are competent, they can decide what they want to do. If they are not competent, their medical proxy can decide. Of course, all life support services need to be in place before they are moved. A big question is why you want to move them home. Is it to save money? It may be very difficult on them to go home, than to transfer to a SNF if that doesn't work out. If you have the medical proxy, you should be able to move them, but it would be AMA (against medical advice). Find out what the implications of that would be.

Now for the property questions -- if the houses are bringing in income, they will be considered as part of your parents' income and the money can be used to help with the cost of their care if they have to go to a facility. This can be a two-edged sword if it raises their income over the amount that they can qualify for Medicaid if needed. There are ways to spend down and trusts available, but that is beyond my knowledge. I hope someone else will chime in on it. If they do go on Medicaid, then the properties will most likely have a lien put on them and be subject to recovery when your parents pass.

If they are not bringing in money, then it would probably be better to sell them unless the heirs are considering them for future income. Only the primary residence is exempt from counting when applying for Medicaid. Rental properties that are a source of income are also allowed if I understand correctly.