The elderly primary caretaker has decided he is taking his wife home. He's bought a hospital bed and has 8 hours per day of basically babysitters lined up. The Nursing Home where she currently resides thinks she needs 24 hour care and medical supervision. The social worker is trying to work with him to set up a safe discharge plan but he doesn't think he needs that and is not cooperative.
He has been advised that doing this could affect not only her Medicaid benefits but also Medicare and her normal insurance coverages. He says he doesn't care. Her primary care doctor is on record saying he will not care for her if she is returned home against medical advice.
Can anyone tell me their own experiences with this? (I do not need suggestions for action to take. There is nothing I can do. I'm just an interested bystander.)
mom died because they wouldn’t call doctor til brother called ambulance.They wouldn’t let ambulance take her to hospital.
doctor came in after ambulance tried to take her to hospital, she had pneumonia and died before morning. 😢
I made that promise to my husband who had a stroke four and a half years ago. I took him out of rehab early, good thing I did. They had him on 17 medications of only 3 he needed. They said he could choose not to take the others, but his stroke left him speechless. They planned on doing stents that he didn't need (proven by another specialist). I took him home, I took care of him, with therapist and a nurse coming in. The nurse and therapist helped me help him. His doctor, not an assigned doctor worked with us. That promise not to leave him was fulfilled and I got four and a half wonderful years with him.
Medical is a business. Medicare only pays a percentage, the rest is on the family. The additional insurance only covers if Medicare approved. Medical works for you not the other way around, because you pay them they don't pay you.
So, if he made her a promise or if he can't afford (might lose everything) could be why he is doing this. Take into consideration that love or fear of losing everything might be what is driving his actions.
I think he is terrified of nursing homes. He is making decisions based on terror and denial.
1) Is she aware of what is going on around her?
2) How is her husbands health?
3) Is she in diapers?
4) Can she feed herself?
5) Can he be convinced to visit her when he gets up until she goes to bed in the evening?
6) Do they have children or family locally that can rotate helping him with her?
7) Can she walk or get out of bed on her own?
This is so sad. I feel his loneliness, or is he so in love with her he can't be without her? I wish them both happiness and success if she is or isn't moved. No matter which way this goes it will be difficult for them both.
He visits very frequently.
They have no local family that can provide care.
His physical health is not great but he would not be considered disabled.
My father would put a bullet in his head instead of going to a home. My best friend, whom I cared for till he died in the bathtub, while sipping tea, had MS. Only 60. He asked me to help him commit suicide when he got the diagnosis. But, I moved in with him and cared for him through seizures, dementia, fits of rage, wheelchair walks. No home aids, just my alcoholic boyfriend adding to the nightmare. Someone once asked me why I put up with the sick people in my life. I said"I don't want to be alone", and I want to do some good in this world.
When we deal with primal feelings or urges, there is no sanity.
How is the lady at the centre of it doing at the moment?
Does the elderly caregiver have this? Or do you? One of the kids perhaps?
We had an issue with my father where he was living with a girlfriend who wasn't taking care of him. After he ended up in the hospital with dementia, my sister invoked PoA and got him into 24/7 nursing (which he needed).
If the elderly caregiver has full legal power, you could probably contact adult protective services, and maybe contact an elder law attorney. It is a huge red-flag that the primary care doctor says she cannot go home, that they will discontinue treatment, etc., if she is removed from the facility.
You can fight this even if you don't have PoA
He was afraid to bring her to the doctor because he said "They'll take her away from me." Which they did once he called EMS because he couldn't get her up off the floor. She was very bruised, very weak, had pneumonia, edema, she wasn't eating...if she had been taken from a nursing home in that condition someone would have filed a complaint!
Now she's physically stronger but her dementia has gotten much worse.
He said to me. I'll never call EMS again.
He is a frightened old man. He doesn't want her to die. He doesn't care what insurance coverage he loses or what it costs him. He thinks he can make the dementia better if she is at home. And he takes zero responsibility for the shape she was in when she left his home.
The insurance company can refuse to pay if one leaves against medical advice.
Their choices.
However, the few brave persons I have known had their medical bills paid by insurance, and kept the same doctors when they left against medical advice.
Their choice!
It is negotiable.