Summary: mom with Dementia and stroke dx. Needs help with ADLs, cannot live alone, wandering risk, fall risk, documented frequent flyer in the ER. Has a bona fide dementia dx and official work up from doctor on file. Makes a little over the Medi-cal limit. I can manipulate her income to make her under the limit to qualify via buying more supplemental health insurance policies. No assets at all. Cannot live with me as I have no room and I travel for a living.
Mom was at an independent living facility with caregivers I hired in during day. She was found wandering half naked at midnight.
She was picked up by EMS at midnight and driven to large local hospital. No shirt, one shoe, and checked in as Jane Doe.
I discovered her missing at 7am the next morning when she was due to go to adult day care. Filed missing person report. Finally found her as Jane Doe around 1400 that day. ER RN tells me to come pick her up. Nope, transfer her to The Worst HMO Ever.
TWHE calls and tells me pick her up. I tell TWHE, not happening, not safe to discharge. It was much more dramatic than that, actually. The social worker was a real work and tried to mislead me but every day TWHE sends her to a memory care facility and has been paying for it for an entire year since there are no Medicare open beds available in a locked facility. She has to go to locked facility because she's a known wanderer now. Smh. She still tries to leave facility she is in now regularly.
Facility calls me and says they think TWHE is going to end my mom’s stay there at the end of this month. I don't know what my next step should be. Nothing has changed except my mom now has a tiny bit of savings. Her money is an account and the majority of it has gone to paying for her major dental work, i.e. implants and dentures. The money that remains after that large and in charge dental bill would cover two months max in her memory care facility and about the same amount of in home care.
y mom still cannot live with me, I travel for a living and she needs even more help with ADLs and has even more severe dementia. She can't go back to the former living arrangement because I can't afford a caregiver 24/7, I could only afford one to come through part of the day. Truthfully I was losing my mind when she was living in the independent living. It was too much for me to balance working, kids, school and checking in on her and handling two households. She ultimately needs a medi-cal bed, the end as this situation is not improving.
Can they really kick her out of this place before finding a medi-cal/Medicare paid bed? Any suggestions?
Have you ever consulted with an eldercare attorney or Medi-Cal planner? Has mom's income not been going to the facility as her "share of cost"?
Medicare does NOT pay for long term care (except for short term rehab) so it's MediCal that you are looking for. I would consult a MediCal savvy attorney before manipulating her income in anyway, since there is a lookback that is done when she applies.
Tge best way to get her into a MediCal bed is directly from a hospitalization.
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