My kids are afraid of my dad. I've been trying to get him into a nursing home for a year. What can I do?

I am so sorry you are dealing with such a stressful situation. Have you gone back to the nursing home to ask for help? It seems they should be motivated to get your dad approved. If they are not cooperative, maybe look into another facility that is more helpful. Have you explored services that may be available in your county? Google can be your friend when looking for assistance. You can search for "elder services in Will County Illinois" for instance and see what comes up.
Best of luck,
Margaret

There’s no way it should take a year to be approved for Medicaid. It sounds like the nursing home dropped the ball somewhere. Have you contacted their financial staff to see what the holdup is? When I personally applied for Medicaid, I was contacted by our county’s family and community services agency. Your state should also have a Medicaid hotline. You can find the # on the Internet. It would help if the NH would give you the case number. Tell Medicaid, the nursing home and the doctor what you are up against. There is no other family member who can take him?

You need to be extremely proactive about this, even to daily phone calls.

Are you attempting to get him into only one nursing home? It sounds like you need to cast a wider net.

Here's some advise I received from a recently retired nurse. If you are desperate and you fear for your family's safety or mental health, take your dad to the hospital and leave him there. Or better, call 911 and tell them an elderly man is having chest pains. That will guarantee him a 3-day stay.

When they clear him for release, tell the social worker that there isn't a safe place for him to return home. No doubt in the 3 unquestioned days Medicare pays for, they will have noted his behavior. Tell the social worker he is Medicaid pending. And even if they try to pressure or guilt you, stand firm. He does not have a safe place to return home. The hospital social worker WILL expedite the paperwork and find a nursing home bed for your dad.

Ask for the nursing home of your choice, but realize they may not be able to place him there. BarbBrooklyn's advise was excellent; start researching other facilities you would find acceptable, at least on a temporary basis. Have a few acceptable options to give the social worker, but also realize that he may have to go to your 2nd or 3rd choice until he can be transferred where you want him. But he will be somewhere he can be cared for, and he will be safe while your family recovers. Good luck to you.

I agree that TK needs to research other facilities, but Medicaid is a government program, and THEY could be the ones holding up progress, right? If Medicaid has been filed correctly by the facility , it is up to that agency to approve or deny the application, not the NH.  If the application process has been screwed up by the facility, it doesn’t matter if TK does change facilities. The application is with Medicaid and not with the nursing home. 

The facility should also be keeping TK up to date on any communications between them and Medicaid, and if TK asks for information about the application, it should be provided immediately. If she has the application number, she should be able pull up the application and see what the status is.

TK Your children come first plus they are special needs. They should not be living in a home with an adult they are afraid of.
As suggested take him to the ER with whatever you can think of and refuse to take him home and leave. They won't dump him on your doorstep. They will however give you a hard time and may get quite agressive so be prepared for that.

Take him to the hospital and leave him there and do not go back and get him.

What is he doing to scare everyone? Has he been violent? Does he have weapons like guns or knives, etc.? If so, if he lives with you then take those weapons away and hide them somewhere he can't get to them. If he has anything else he's threatening people with, you may need some help in getting that away from him. Is he molesting them? If so, the cops really need to know. Whatever is going on, you really need to find out and get to the bottom of it and bring it to a stop. If he lives with you it may be time to drop him off at the hospital or at a nursing home and just let social services take care of it. I would drop him off and then call from a safe distance and ask for social services after calling the APS and reporting this behavior as well as making a police report. You may want to start with the police report first though so you have something to go on and it maybe they can help you get him out of there if he's living in your home, especially since you have kids living with you. Something definitely needs done and fast before he hurts someone unless he already has. What I would do is if he goes outside during one of his angry rants, lock him out of the house and then call the cops and have them call the APS. They can take him away. 

If you take him to the ER and refuse to take him home, I don't answer none of the calls from the hospital, social services or even the nursing home. Don't answer no correspondence whatsoever, I sure wouldn't. As mentioned they may harass you and make it hard for you but you can program your phone to not have a ringtone for the hospital if you program this on a modern phone with programmable ringtones. You can have none and just have it silent and you can even turn off any voicemail or answering machine you may have. If someone comes to your doorstep, don't answer. Keep your doors and windows locked, your drapes shut and just don't acknowledge no one during this time. In fact, hunker down in your home and stay quiet. This should be easy if you're normally quiet.

Your kids are your #1 priority. All decisions are based on that. Period.

As a nurse, I've seen this happen. Patients, who are no longer tolerable in the family they live with, and where other avenues of care haven't worked out, can bring them to the ER (now called ED) for real or fictitious pain or ailments, then not be "able" to take them home. The burden of his care then rests on the hospital (actually the social worker). She can push through emergency housing for your dad through Medicare. Of course they don't WANT you to know about this option nor have you do it. Explain that your disabled children aren't safe with him in the house and you can NOT take him back. Tell them the Medicare application is already in the works. The one thing to remember is to REFUSE to take him back. They will be forcing you but stay strong for your children.
God bless you all.

Not sure how the facility could do the filing. I went to Medicaid and had to have all kinds of forms. One being the house was up for sale. Once you apply and are approved, you have 60days to place them in a facility. With my Mom, she paid two months private pay and then went into Medicaid. I had a paper from Medicaid with what I still needed to provide. I agree, contact the facility and find out what happened to the application. The next time he is in the hospital or rehab have them evaluate him for longterm. Tell them you no longer can care for him. I think having 4 special needs children is a good excuse. One would be a good excuse. If he is becoming violent, this is a good reason to call an ambulance or the police.

Sorry to say...you have to be on top of everything. You can't leave it up to hoping someone is doing his job.

Something seems amiss here because the Medicaid application shouldn't take this long. Check with them.

If he is no longer safe alone, you may consider guardianship either outside the family or family to make this happen. Good Luck.

Some good advice here. The undercurrent message is - don't leave it any longer to act.
In my own experience in another country, dealing with a friend with Alzheimer's who was great at bluff "all's well", the only solution was to book her into hospital for a general checkup (she did have some health issues) - and it was the hospital that decided she could no longer live alone. All systems kicked in afterwards and she is now in full-time residential care.
So try that tack - a full checkup, including mental health, residential over one weekend, then have a long discussion with hospital admin staff to explain why you no longer want him in your home with 4 terrified children in your care.

I'd sure get to the bottom of why the application is not going through. Do any posters have suggestion on who to best do this - talk to the nursing home business office to see what info they have, or go direct to Medicaid? Really have to be the squeaking wheel here.