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New Sinner in the hands of an HMO
My wife has been looking after our elderly neighbor—ninety-five next month—since 2013. During this time she has gone from her own home to “senior living” to “assisted living” and now to a “skilled nursing facility.” The old woman’s healthcare provider has at every stage lowballed her services, denying these until L raises hell and threatens legal action. at which point they grudgingly accede. Now the old woman’s toe has gone gangrenous, and the provider says that it will fall off of its own accord, and that if it doesn’t, they’ll take off the leg, no problemo.

My. Fucking. God.
Expand Edited by rcareaga June 15, 2021, 03:35:41 PM EDT
New Go find yourself an advocate nurse
I'm sorry we are way too far away for that but that is what my wife does. All her employers hate her. They all want to fire her. Except if they do the family members raise hell and therefore she gets to keep her job a little longer.

Find an LPN not an RN. Those are RNs may be smart but they don't know s*** about dealing with people.
New Really makes you wonder about people who work for them
Couple years ago I interviewed with a company "in the mortgage industry". Turns out they handled foreclosures and evictions. I decided no matter how much they paid - and it was A LOT - I couldn't spend all day improving the efficiency of kicking people our of their homes.
--

Drew
Expand Edited by drook May 6, 2021, 07:45:55 AM EDT
New Damn, that's sad!
I guess the lady has no relatives that monitor her status.
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New That has to be illegal.
That's evil.

When licenses are at risk from small bed sores, letting a person get gangrene and refusing to treat it should be cause for the state coming down hard on them.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217555/

The federal and state governments share responsibility for quality assurance in nursing homes. The performance criteria are federal, but the federal government has delegated to the states responsibility to inspect nursing homes using these criteria and to certify their eligibility to participate in the Medicaid program. For the Medicare program, state governments inspect the facilities on behalf of the federal government and make certification recommendations to the federal government; the certification decisions are made by the HCFA. The federal government has authority in both the Medicaid and Medicare programs to conduct independent inspections of certified nursing homes to audit the states' certification activities. The federal government also can decertify substandard facilities.


The nursing facility has the responsibility to care for her, full stop. As long as she's there, that's their responsibility. Not the patient's and not your and your wife's.

Get the state involved.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Endgame: annals of “The Finest Healthcare in the World”
Well, the old woman turned ninety-five on 2 June. Her insurance announced that she no longer required “skilled nursing,” and turned her out, back to “assisted living,” three days later. The spousette had already arranged for her former quarters to be returned from the west side of the building, overlooking a parking lot, to the east side, with a pleasant view of the Oakland hills (she’d been put on the west side while the east wing was being “remodeled”).

She and I spent Saturday 5 June moving the goods and chattel from one room to the other, an undertaking that required most of the day. Following this, I sat seething in the car (I had been, I confess, entirely ungracious at having been conscripted into this undertaking, since unlike L I had never formed an emotional attachment to the crone) while my wife visited with her friend, then barely conscious—her foot, still untreated, had turned entirely black—for what proved the last time.

An hour after we returned home, the facility called to inform us that Dora had died, probably not more than forty-five minutes after we’d left. We accordingly spent Sunday moving all the clothing, furniture &c out of the new room and off the premises, into our rented storage locker, which has now, with the addition of all this useless chattel, attained Lina’s Platonic ideal of storage space: not a cubic yard unused or “wasted”; most of the contents entirely irretrievable for any practical purposes.

Lina had, fortunately, made the final arrangements (the woman had been very clear as to where and in what form she wanted her corpse to be deposited: the arrangements were costly, but with last month’s sale of her house, the estate can afford it) days before the end. The relatives will be arriving from New Mexico this week for the obsequies.

Two days after the death, Lina fielded a phone call from the HMO: “We’ve denied your appeal. It’s been determined that Ms. Garcia does not need to be in skilled nursing.” “You’re fucking well right she doesn’t,” my wife snarled. “That’s because you killed her as she was about to be discharged,” proceeding to some eloquent and not entirely civil variations on this theme. I pointed out to her afterward that she was abusing a munchkin who’d had no hand in making the actual (and actuarial) hard-hearted call, but she was unreceptive to this argument, upon which I sensibly did not enlarge.

What a ghastly cuntry (sic) this is.

mordially,
Expand Edited by rcareaga June 13, 2021, 05:23:34 PM EDT
New Condolences. :-( It's infuriating, and far too common.
New A remarkable development
The elderly neighbor appeared to have died intestate, which under California would have meant that several of her collateral descendants, including a couple of carrion-adjacent grandnephews, would have enjoyed shares of the spoils once the considerable expenses of probate had been subtracted.

The adjacent property having changed hands shortly before the old woman’s death, the former downstairs tenants are moving out this week. One of the movers found a bundle of papers in an unused utility room. Among them was a photocopy of a 1996 will, the original being on file with a local attorney still in business, under the terms of which the entire estate goes to Dora’s surviving brother, now eighty-nine, who—unless he squanders the $500K on hookers and blow—will presumably leave it to his daughter, who has been the only relative from that tier who appeared to care about her aunt from other than mercenary motives.

The brother and his daughter, and her son, have all expressed appreciation to Lina for having looked out for Dora since 2013, but—and nothing against them—I suspect that the fungible expression of such appreciation will require another five bucks before it translates to a grande cappuccino. In her waning months, Dora had spoken of leaving my wife half her estate. Lina shrugs: “Her relatives would think that I’d taken advantage of her trust.” Observes that a gift from the bequeathed would be a nice gesture, but adds that she never contemplated material gain when she took on Project Dora. Me, I’m just grateful that it’s off her plate,

cordially,
New I'd be happy just knowing the jerks don't get it
--

Drew
Expand Edited by drook June 26, 2021, 11:07:33 AM EDT
New Doubly remarkable
Had we arrived home from Sacramento an hour later in January 2013, we’d not have observed our neighbor being carried out of her home by paramedics. Lina began involving herself in the old woman’s affairs at that point. Had we arrived back from a long lunch with friends in El Cerrito an hour later, the downstairs tenants would have finished moving out, and the will would almost certainly have remained undiscovered (Lina gave the mover a C-note—mine—in appreciation). I don’t myself credit providence in such matters, but if I did, I’d certainly talk up these bookended events.

cordially,
     Sinner in the hands of an HMO - (rcareaga) - (9)
         Go find yourself an advocate nurse - (crazy)
         Really makes you wonder about people who work for them - (drook)
         Damn, that's sad! - (a6l6e6x)
         That has to be illegal. - (Another Scott)
         Endgame: annals of “The Finest Healthcare in the World” - (rcareaga) - (1)
             Condolences. :-( It's infuriating, and far too common. -NT - (Another Scott)
         A remarkable development - (rcareaga) - (2)
             I'd be happy just knowing the jerks don't get it -NT - (drook) - (1)
                 Doubly remarkable - (rcareaga)

But isn't everything better with Christopher Walken?
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