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Insurance won't pay for nursing facility/hospital.
She is 88, has broken both hips, has macular degeneration and Celiac disease. She was put into the psychiatric wing of a local hospital after her incident and they're giving her new drugs to stabilize her mental/emotional issues. Her HMO won't pay for more hospitalization or a skilled nursing facility because they say she doesn't require constant care. Her assisted living facility won't take her now because of her incident. She has nowhere to go. Does anyone have any ideas? Because of her health and mobility issues, family members can't take her in.

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Thanks, that's very helpful. I am in one of the states you mention, but assisted suicide is not legally that easy, believe me. The good news at this moment is that because of pressure amongst all the agencies involved, we were able to stabilize her on some new medications for now and her ALF facility relented and let her back in. As you mentioned, I'm sure it's helpful that at this point she's private pay. We are researching nursing homes and even adult family homes for the future. What a wake up call! I don't ever want to get to that point, and I have a sinking feeling that things will even be worse in the future. I'm calling her condition "longevity disorder. " How ironic that the medical world keeps people alive much longer then in the past and then fails when they live too long, run out of cash, have more complicated needs, and understandably don't want to live anymore.
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Here's the problem/solutions we faced with our mom. She had dementia and was screaming out constantly. She was in Assisted Living and all the psychiatric meds we were trying to use to calm her down were not working. When she got pneumonia, we realized that she needed to be on original Medicare, not managed Medicare as in Humana Medicare if she needed to go full-time into a nursing home.

When we moved her to traditional Medicare, voila, all of a sudden nursing homes had beds available. (They get reimbursed at a higher rate with Original Medicare). Now this is for skilled nursing not long-term nursing home care.

You really want to be careful where they place her as a lot of Nursing Homes are awful.(I know this from researching them in WPB, Fl). The government has just changed how they rank nursing homes so you might want to start there to see how they rank for hours of nursing care, etc. Then, you want to research the ones that will accept Medicaid. She'll get in there faster if she has some money to pay for care initially. Otherwise, you're back to square one waiting and praying for a bed because they take forever to find if she is on Medicaid.
This is all awful what our parents go through. Until they're practically comatose, they're going through hell. I don't blame her from wanting to commit suicide. If she's of a right mind, she should be able to do that. (Should could if she was in Washington, Oregon or VT.)
Best of luck to you.
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The social worker will try very hard to shift the burden of care to you or anybody that appears the least interested. Say repeatedly you cannot take her in, or make any kind of arrangements, or push another relative into caring for her, etc. Stick to your guns 100%. Tell the social worker you are not coming in to town to visit or be around. The social worker will have to find placement for her. Tell your Mom you love her but the hospital needs to figure this out.
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Helpful, thanks!
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I would start by appealing the HMOs decision. You may need an attorney. Do not pick her up. The hospital will not put her out on the street.

The nursing home that my mother is in seems to have a locked wing, for patients that are a danger to themselves.
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The social worker at the hospital, who seems quite inexperienced, has been working on that for 4 days and says most nursing homes won't take her; they don't have beds available or I am sure they are afraid of her because of her incident. The social worker has even asked me to do some research and I'm in another city (and work full time). We're having trouble getting any information on Medicare and we will have to start the process for Medicaid because obviously she'll be spending down all her money. My dad is also in assisted living, in the facility that won't let my mom back in. He's 91, deaf, with limited mobility. He doesn't know about a lot of the latest stuff. Oh I didn't mention he also has a heart condition. Did I just fall into purgatory?
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Tell the social worker at the hospital that. There is nobody able to provide for her care. They will have to find a place which may be a Medicaid nursing home.
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Is there anyway to hire help to come in? There are agencies or if you put an ad out( be careful either way). What about adult daycares? That will help the day shift. Social Services may be able to help, she could get a case worker and this might help move care for your mom faster. Im really sorry.
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all dressed up with nowhere to go --
like an atheist in a casket ..
i dont have any advice for you , just lame inappropriate jokes .
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