We are actually setting up a savings account jointly with D with enough in it to handle funeral expenses and temporary costs. We hope she doesn’t need to access it any time soon, but good to have it.
Funny story. Visited my 91year old m-i-l today, and my s-i-l and I bought her 2 new nightgowns from Kohls. We were careful to select items with buttons in the front, loose short sleeves without snug elastic, etc. Thought we did a good job. She hated both. “Not youthful enough”!
We are keeping it positive and decided that her difficult behavior was a good sign - seems more like her normal personality than the docile child-like behavior we have seen lately.
@LasMa
I just ventured into this thread and saw your questions about document retention. The general rule that the IRS has 3 years to audit a tax return from its due date or date of filing unless income is under-reported or there is fraud.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/money-guides/how-long-should-you-keep-tax-records.aspx
So, if your parent’s house was sold in 2010, the 2010 tax return reporting this transaction would have been due on 4/15/2011 (at least 3 years ago). I would retain for a couple more years for good measure: the original purchase contract and settlement document (showing the house’s purchase price, etc.), the sale contract and settlement document (showing the sale price) and any thing else that supports the way the gain on the house was calculated. The rest can really be shredded and thrown away.
As for property tax statements relating to the house, if the property taxes were deducted on Schedule A filed by your parent, the same document retention rule applies: 3 years after the tax return due date. The rest can be shredded and discarded.
This last hospital stay has been horrendous. They are seriously understaffed so since she’s in a quarantined room, where they have to dress up and she’s not an emergency horrible things have happened to her. Thankfully we’ve had family there the entire time, but they’ve been saying not a single staff member stopped in while my one sister was there for 6 hours without even leaving for a break, they have to beg for her cough medicine and it took 24 hours to get it, they ran out of the thing that holds down the catheter and so her bed was soaked and they were having her sit in it, then they brought in a potty chair, with nothing to catch it, and she went in her bed. The nurses are saying they have no aides, and they’re overwhelmed by emergencies, not my mom. Even at night she’s so weak she slides down the bed and needs help being positioned - no one helps. The nurse actually came to my sister, apologized to her, told her she’d be furious if it was her own mother, but there was nothing she could do, it had to go higher up the command chain. We want her out of there before making formal complaints.
My sis walked over to the rehab floor at her new ccrc and told the charge nurse what was going on. They contacted doctors, head of hospital, etc and we’re getting her discharged this morning to their rehab floor. She lives where the blizzard is coming and we don’t want her without family at that hell hole. As long as her chest x ray clears her this morning she’s out of there. We got her into her ccrc in the nick of time, residents get priority on admittance and they assured us they will find room for her.
Eyeamom- thank goodness for family on site! My mother had a similarly disastrous hospitalization and I first advocated for her (got her floor changed, etc) and then dug up the nearly invisible quality assurance office on the hospital’s website and wrote a detailed letter of what I had seen my mother subjected to on a unit (so bad that when I found the charge nurse to complain, she cried). All hospitals must have a QA dept last I knew. QA is obliged to investigate and get back to you with findings. May all go well with discharge and your mother’s recovery. There also state regulatory boards to consider informing.
OMG eyeamom. You must have your mom in the same rathole that horribly mistreated and essentially killed both my parents. I will spare details because its too upsetting to relive. The mouse sitting on the rug in the waiting room eating food off the floor was a nice touch. I told them I thought pet therapy day was Thursday.
I am so sorry to hear about these disturbing experiences and the poor level of care. Finding a good facility can be so challenging. I’ve had a crash course on the topic these past 2 weeks.
Thanks, @AttorneyMother !
Record everything eyemamon so that when you do write up a letter of complaint, you don’t have to rely on your memory.
There is truly no substitute for family being at the hospital everyday.
Glad you’re getting your mom OUT of there. I hope you file a complaint with your state’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization detailing this. That is outrageous.
Eyemamom, your experience with your mom in the hospital was very familiar. I sat for 9 hours in an “evaluation” room at the ER and had to do everything for my mom-get blankets, beg them for a box lunch, beg them for a portable commode. I suspect that if a family member is present they abandon the patient unless it is critical. Worst is the callous attitude they seem to have specifically toward elderly patients. So glad you got your mom safely in place before the storm hits, as the ER is likely to become even more chaotic.
Our current puzzle is how to handle her assisted care facility’s (memory unit) request that we hire a 24 hr private duty caregiver periodically. She has fallen numerous times this month and they are telling us she needs someone to watch her constantly until she is steady on her feet again. At $25/hour on top of the already steep monthly fee for assisted living the costs are spiraling out of control. I’m wondering if I can negotiate with the caregiver agency, since many if not most of their duties are overlapping with services provided by the assisted care residence. The caregiver needs to do little more than sit there and help her up or down when she moves. I think if we refused to hire extra help she would have to move to skilled nursing, which no one thinks is a good idea. Very frustrating.
LasMa- Thank you so much for tips on hospital stays. I didn’t realize the case manager had so much power in deciding the length of stay. Next time I will definitely be more proactive in communicating with the hospital staff.
I hope you do complain to someone higher up. It doesn’t help to complain to nursing staff who are overworked and short staffed. What a nightmare! So glad you have after hospital help.
momsquad- at my parent’s CCRC, you can hire outside help. Some places may not allow that though. Yep, $25/hour on top of assisted living charges is huge! Hopefully, it will be short-lived.
Wow - that is a lot to deal with. My m-i-l is being evaluated today to see if she can move into assisted living, rather than memory care. The facility we liked best only has 1 space open in AL, and none in memory care.
This thread has been so helpful in learning terms and concepts. Thank you all.
Eyemom and others. Last year my 84 year old mother fell and broke her pelvis and was in rehab for seven weeks.
When things began to get questionable my sister and I asked for hospital records. Let me tell you that caused everyone to take notice, even the director of the rehab started making regular chatty visits.
Also, for anyone whose relative is in rehab, you can request copies of the rehab reports sent to insurance angency, which documents the progress your relative is or is not makin, which would help you should you need to appeal any early release.
It was a nightmare experience. My mother lives independently again, but without our intervention it is very unlikely she would have recovered as well as she did.
My sister called me awhile ago in near breakdown mode. The place where she moved, where we want her to go to rehab said they couldn’t take her because she needed to be quarantined - because of the flu. The hospital took her off quarantine. The director of the place gave me his number so I gave him a call - he happened to be on the floor of the rehab and gathered everyone together. I gave a brief synopsis of the situation, that we had to get her out of that hospital, and if they turned her down they had to send her to another place (a known rat hole) They agreed to take her. Her room will be ready at 4, the ambulance will take her there around 5:30.
The qa person came around this morning and my sister told her everything, she made an official complaint. Honestly I just want her out first. Makes you realize, you cannot leave anyone in the hospital alone. Too much can go wrong that they can’t tell you about.
I will exhale when she is comfy in her bed there away from the blizzard. There are 4 siblings, we all actually got outraged together and worked as a team. You literally need a team to navigate this.
Great job, @Eyeamamon! Sounds like you and sis had a ton on your plate and am so glad your mom is going back to the rehab place which you trust. That hospital sounds like a nightmare that NEEDS to be reported in detail, as soon as you get mom safely resettled. Yes, we have always tried to have family stay with anyone who was hospitalized, just to keep an eye on things.
Good Lord, eyeamom. In addition to pursuing complaints with the hospital chain of command, i’d also talk to the appropriate state agency, department of health or whatever. What happened to your mom is completely unacceptable, no matter how busy they were. If they couldn’t care for all their patients, they should have transferred some of them to another hospital.
@momsquad , glad I could help. It’s not that the case manager has power per Se – discharge orders are totally up to the doctor. But doctors are focused on medical care, and insurance implications of a given discharge date often don’t even enter their minds. Whereas insurance is a primary focus of the case manager’s job. A good one will advocate with the doctor on your behalf.
Congratulations Eyemamom! It sounds like good management if they actually made a decision based on common sense to admit your mom. Hopefully the transfer goes smoothly, is it snowing yet? And I envy you with your team of outraged siblings. When I recount my struggles to my siblings I usually get " smile and nod ".
And she’s settled into the rehab unit and everyone can now take a breath and relax. And nothing ever goes smoothly…my sis ended up getting lightheaded and passed out in mom’s room. They took her down to the er for iv. Poor thing just didn’t get a chance to eat waiting for all the doctors and only had some iced tea. She’s literally run ragged, and this rehab stay will be a welcome respite.