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Dragging 92 year old Mom back and forth to doctor is ludicrous! I just need a few simple questions answered on a simple benefit form. BTW: this doctor hasn’t done anything constructive or beneficial for Mom in ten years. Take bp, check pulse, stick a thermometer in her mouth, and ask same stupid questions.

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They always say they have to see the patient then they can bill Medicare.
If you r not happy with the doctor, change. He should be doing yearly labs on Mom. Especially if she is on certain meds. Like Cholesterol. Her enzymes should be checked. Too high and they cause liver damage.
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Is your mom on any medication? If so, then it's required by law that they see her. If only to see that she's still alive. Taking those vitals is the most basic thing they can do. My mom has to see the docs at least twice a year to maintain her meds. Literally, the only thing they do is ask her if she's OK. She says yes. We leave. It's the law. If you don't like it, write to your congressman. I too think it's pretty ridiculous but such are the drug laws in the US. Many of the drugs we need prescriptions for in the US are OTC in other countries. Others any pharmacist can prescribe. But the medical lobby has a lock on these things in the US. You have to pay a doctor $100 to get a prescription to buy a drug for $5.
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I can tell you what we did. And I will feel guilty until my dying day. We tricked our mom. Told her she was going to the dentist. We took her to a geriatric behavioral health hospital based facility. She was there for a week. Dismissed to a memory care facility, she could not go home. She was worse than we knew, because she was clever.

I was tired of doctors seeing her maybe for an hour, when they would actually keep those appts. Which was only the first one. And she was allegedly under the care of a very fine geriatric psychiatrist.

We needed a longer term eval of our mother at 92, soon to be 93. With dementia. We got a diagnosis which was thorough, exhaustive and eye opening. All of the effing tests, all of them. There is not a day that will pass that I don't have terrible awful guilt about how this was done. But our alternative was quickly becoming removal by sheriff. So...
But I will go to my grave with such awful guilt.

Hugs to you.
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JoAnn29 Feb 2019
Please, don't feel guilty. You did what you had to to keep Mom safe. She no longer had the ability to decide on her own. It took a little white lie that a lot of us had to use.
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Not sure where you live but if she has Medicare A/B you could find a palliative care MD; many are now visiting patients at home with monthly visits done by Nurse Practitioners. These are billable to Medicare (part B like an outpatient visit). And the overall goal is to minimize burden of care for patients and families (such as yourself) and optimize your mom’s medical care at home!! Example: decreasing meds when not needed, simplifying treatment plans etc.. and should your mom have increasing signs or symptoms, you should have access 24/7 to an oncall NP for advice to hopefully minimize acute utilization - ie ER admission and hospitalization, when possible. Take care.
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