My sister is in a nursing home. I am her POA and HC directive. I have asked the nursing home for email updates rather than phone.

Ask for a weekly copy of the pages from the chart you feel are important... doctor's notes, nurses notes, etc. They should have a regularly scheduled care plan meeting (not sure how often required) that you should insist on being there. With our father, they seemed to forget to let us know when they were scheduled until the last minute.

If you ever feel she is over-medicated, be sure to ask for copies of the MAR (Medication Admin Record). This will help you be aware of any medication changes.

Get a special notebook to keep your own notes during the phone calls. Have a section that you also make notes after each visit of how you feel she is doing or conversations with staff. Keep an ongoing list of your questions and concerns so you remember to ask about them when they update you.

Anyone who has not looked at their loved one's chart may be in for a surprise. We were surprised to find a form in our father's chart the facility doctor and hospice doctor had signed saying he was not competent to make medical decisions.... meanwhile the nurses were telling us only our father could refuse medicine that we had requested to be stopped. We had an ongoing battle with the nurses insisting they had to follow the doctor's orders because even they did not know the form was in his chart!

Do they offer a portal? That must be secure because Drs and Labs use them.

HIPPA protects a persons health information. Thats why in every Hospital, Rehab, NH, Rehab and Drs office you have to fill out HIPPA forms naming who is allowed to get ur heath information. If you are the Medical POA, you already have been given a right to the info.

Email is generally not secure, they are correct.
Texting also is usually not secure.
You can record conversations if you inform them that you are recording the conversation.
You can ask them to mail care notes to you after a phone call. The notes should be easy to mail as everything is documented in the medical record.

If they emailed you, they'd need to have that option for all their patients. Just the time it would take to write and send emails makes this unviable. Sometimes my MIL's LTC facility needs us to make a decision quickly, and "hoping" for an immediate answer from an email doesn't work in this scenario. What if you have a question about what they wrote you... are you going to write back to them? Then wait for an answer? Isn't the staff busy enough with just tending to the patients? Then there's having to manage the flood of emails back from families...

No one loves email (or a written "paper trail") more than me, but I have a business and can hardly keep track of the multiple emails from multiple clients. Even though we use a special app for this, it is still way less than a perfect solution. Also I'm a very fast typer, too. Not everyone is.

Likely they wouldn't consent to having their phone calls recorded; although technically, Federal and Minnesota law allow one-party consent* where YOU would be the one consenting to the recording. BUT, that could still open up a legal can of worms so talk to an elder law attorney about the best way to gather information from a reluctant facility.

HIPAA protects personally identifiable information like name, birth date, and SSN. Those things don't need to be used to update someone on a loved one's condition. And it's not unusual for medical facilities to send encrypted emails that require a password which is sent by phone, snail mail, or text. Perhaps an elder law attorney may also be able to help with an acceptable communication process.

You may also want to contact the ombudsman assigned to the facility about your concerns.

Best wishes to you and sis.


* Source article: iRecorded a private conversation: Call recording and the law. www.mnbar.org