It can help if you’re part of a group like Am Dental, Am Bar, or even an alumnus from a U to get some group plan that may have better coverage at lower premiums. Some have found an insurance broker invaluable.
Sure wish it were easier and more affordable for all folks to get good coverage at affordable prices.
Let’s not overlook the fact that you can have insurance but it may not cover the kind of medical care you may suddenly need.
As a self-employed person, getting health care is the very definition of not fun.
My DH is self-employed, and yes, it’s so expensive. It seems like every year we have had to find coverage because our previous policy is no longer offered. If we were unable to afford private insurance, I would have to find full time employment as a nurse and get us on that insurance. Fortunately, we haven’t been in that position. Nursing is hard work physically; I don’t know how I’d do it full time, with all of my back and neck problems-problems I think were caused at least in part to working ICU for so many years (and have had to have surgery for them).
This problem of insurance being tied to employment is extremely frustrating.
I forgot to add that DH is on Medicare now. What a relief! We save hundreds of dollars a month and pay much less for meds and doctors’ appointments. And a good amount of dental coverage is included, whoo hoo! Once DD leaves the nest, we will have to pay for insurance for just the two of us. I guess we’ll use the saved money to pay down our huge HELOC balance from the kid’s tuition!
As of this month, DH and I are both on Medicare. I can’t remember when our combined insurance premums were this low. It would’ve been nice to use our windfall for a nice vacation. I guess that will have to wait. My kids, who both have employer health insurance, couldn’t believe how much the two of us paid for our private insurance (DH was self-employed).
The elder isn’t wandering, he’s sneaking out purposely. AL sent him to the ER for a psych eval after the second escape, held him for several days, but concluded he’s not incompetent. He went back to MC in the facility, but AL says they’ll let him come back when restrictions loosen up.
When he’s not quarantined, he spends most of the time at the staff desk. Doesn’t interact much with other residents.
Cost for MC is 150% of AL, per BIL. It’s hard to find a balance between self-agency and protecting a vulnerable senior.
Wandering is kind of the wrong term, but it is what facilities use. I think purposeful sneaking out at 4am would fall under the category of “wandering” in terms of meeting criteria for memory care. And as I mentioned before, spending a lot of time at the staff desk is another (unspoken but observed many times) criterion for MC.
I am curious what the ER did for a psych. evaluation. My mother has succeeded in passing a dementia test (Who is the President, what month is it? Etc.) on a good day with some clues around (local paper in front of her). But when she stayed at a geriatric psych. facility with full evaluation was found to have moderate dementia. They can fool some of the people some of the time 
He may have had a reason for leaving at 4 am, to escape detection, but the whole things sounds unsafe. Getting a ride that early, from whom? Walking alone along the road in the dark? And he did it again.
I would think the AL would be afraid of liability but maybe once doors open again (In the seemingly far distant future in my state), perhaps he won’t need to “escape.”
Tough situation for sure.
In our state, health insurance is not tied to employment. We had Romney Care, the model for the Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid expansion. When I was not working I got a plan that was very affordable on the state website. The whole point of the ACA originally was to offer individual plans with group rates. My kids were on Medicaid when they graduated, until they found a job. In fact, in many states, grad students qualify for Medicaid. This is a bit of a tangent but just want to say I hope these issues are fixed in all states. In the meantime, for any federal or state program to work, people need to sign on and pay. No program will work if only sick people pay for insurance. Think of it like herd immunity!
Wandering is about the general risks- and judgment- not the specific intentions being reasonable-sounding. It’s not about having a great excuse (“I had a headache at 4am and just wanted to walk down to the all night place and buy some aspirin.”)
A friend’s mom “only” wandered to the facility’s garden. But the facility’s fear was that further decline would lead to farther travels. At the time, she got moved from observation and personal assistance form of MC built into AL, to an actual lock and key on all doors out of MC.
My FIL started wandering as his dementia worsened. We found out that he was walking around the facility (indoors) over night, and there weren’t any restrictions as long as he was able to get in and out of the apartment safely. The restrictions came when we found out that he was walking outside up the hill, using his walker (bear in mind he was bent over at about a 75* angle due to scoliosis). He went on the list of unable to leave without someone with him. The only easy way out of the AL is through the front door, which is watched til ~9pm and then in/out with a code.
@compmom, walked to a gas station and hailed a cab. I’m not sure what kind of eval he had during the psych eval, but BIL said the docs told him that the elder is miserable and hates it there, but isn’t significantly impaired. We’ve seen otherwise.
The AL thinks that once he’s not confined to his room because of COVID, things may improve. He’s in NJ, and the facility was hit hard. SIL and my niece do window visits with him, but he feels like a caged animal. I totally get that, but the risks he’s taking by sneaking off are non-trivial.
Thanks for letting me vent.
@CountingDown, was he a new resident there? With dementia, some residents cannot remember how things used to be. I know my mother calls every night wanting to leave because she “hates this place and its rules.” And I have to explain it is the virus, on and on, to no avail because she still doesn’t understand. At the end of my explanation she says “Can you come up to my room tomorrow?”
But if this man moved in just before COVID he would have no experience of the positives of the place. Without dementia, he could understand the explanation but would still have no direct experience of the potential of the place as yet.
This story kind of breaks my heart. He can also be seen as taking initiative in an ingenious way. They are, indeed, “caged” and we are locked out.
@compmom, he’s been there about a year. He made a few friends, but they passed away last fall and winter. He decided he’d hang out with the staff instead. A lot of the time he’s with it, albeit bitter and eccentric, but when he’s not… it’s really tough.
Awww sad to lose friends and then lose access to family. He must have felt desperate to do what he did.
This week’s fun included trying to order a new power supply thing for my dad’s recliner. Apparently having the old power supply is useless to Laz E Boy, they need some code that is printed on the bottom of the foot rest. So I had to call the community and ask someone to go into their room and crawl under the chair to write down the number.
Then I got a call asking me to get a 4" or Bunkie board to put under dad’s mattress instead of his normal high profile boxspring. He has fallen a couple of times getting out of bed.
Needing the recliner to get up and falling out of bed I am sure are partially a result of being less active during this shutdown. While they still go to the dining room, it’s only about 10 feet from their door. Normally they’d be walking to other parts of the building for entertainment or birthday parties etc. He doesn’t remember to walk some laps on his own, of course. I normally do that when I visit, but of course i haven’t visited for 3 months.
HIs birthday was this weekend and we showed up at the window to wave to him. It was happy/sad. He kept asking us to come in.
I think the pandemic closure is really affecting my parents. While the MC unit is still dining together and having activities, they are not doing the big entertainment and other activities with the wider PC side. Plus no visitors or trips out. I understand it and I do not disagree.
I have had three conversations in the last week with the staff about my parents physically fighting. THis is so embarrassing to even type out here. My dad is the sweetest most soft-spoken guy, a real introvert. I never heard him say a four letter word, he never raised his voice at me or mom, even when they would argue while I was growing up.
My mom’s stroke just made her so different. I think underneath, she is really confused and scared but it comes out as baiting my dad. When he doesn’t understand her question, because it is often a confused jumble, she yells at him. Then he gets mad at her. And apparently they are now grabbing at each other or slapping each other. It is mortifying.
The ED told me today if they were 2 unrelated residents, she would be obligated to call the Dept of Aging and remove one to a different community. For now, she is going to put dad in a different room and try to keep them as separate as possible. I feel absolutely helpless.
As I am sure you all feel, these are people who are/were intellectual, competent, volunteer-type people. It is so depressing to think that this is their life now. No quality of life, even before COVID they were having spats a lot. The stroke just robbed mom of so much. I am not sure if I am asking for advice here or commiseration.
My poor BFF in Austin. Her parents were still in independent living. Her dad, 95, fell in the bedroom. I guess her mom, 98, tried to help and she fell, too. They both ended up in the hospital. He’s been in SNF but is getting out. He needs to be in assisted living, but there is no room available at their present facility (the one that is so nice, where we had reserved a place for my mom). BFF’s mother needs to go to memory care now. BFF also found out that her dad is on insulin for diabetes - nobody knew he had diabetes because he hadn’t shared. So she is scrambling to find two places for her parents.
@surfcity, they were also intellectural, competent, and volunteer-types! BFF’s dad was a psychology professor at UT who has written quite a few books. Her mom had a master’s degree in literature and did a lot of work with the League of Women Voters. Just the most delightful couple.
BFF’s long-term boyfriend just called. He lives out of town and visits her every weekend. Someone at his plant tested positive so now he has to be tested and won’t be able to visit tomorrow. She is feeling overwhelmed.
So sorry all this is going on with your parents @surfcity.
@surfcity I really feel for you. It must be so hard. I don’t know that this is relevant, but just in case it is: my father used to get extremely frustrated at my stepmother as her dementia thickened. I enlisted him to just play along: she wants to carry her pocketbook everywhere? Be helpful and make sure she has it even though there is absolutely nothing she needs inside. She insists that the sky is red, not blue? Sure! Thanks for letting me know. He realized pretty quickly that this method of dealing with her was much more effective than trying to get her to function in the world of reality and took care of a lot of the conflict.
I am sorry but I don’t remember how much contact you are allowed to have with your parents. Just in case this is helpful…and either way, (((((hugs))))),
So sorry for what you’re going through, @surfcity. Watching parents decline and change from who we knew they were is so difficult. It sounds like separating your parents makes sense at this point.