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Feb. 27th, 2006 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickHere's another of those cheerful life-planning posts that I'm sure everyone is really geared up to read. Nothing like a little end-of-life planning to get the blood pumping, is there? Today's adventure was transferring grandma to the rehab/nursing home where she will work to recover any skills she has lost while in the hospital and maybe improve her ability to accomplish her activities of daily living by working with physical therapists and coaches. Medica-whatever pays for twenty days of this, provided that she continues to show improvement throughout that time frame and her insurance (Blue Cross) pays for days 21-100 provided that she still is showing improvement. The cost of the thing isn't a problem, but the paperwork is somewhat daunting.
To put someone in a nursing home, even for a temporary rehab, you need to fill out an assload of paperwork.
Assuming that the person is not capable of putting himself in a nursing home, you will need a power of attorney, or PoA. This is a document drawn up by your family lawyer to authorize someone else (usually a family member) to make decisions regarding your care when you are not able to act for yourself. Since a general-purpose PoA can grant broad-based powers (including access to your financial accounts), it's probably best to pick someone you can trust to make the right decisions in your stead. You may also wish to discuss your reasons for giving someone PoA with your attorney to see if a specific-duration or limited PoA would be more suitable for you. While this does cost money and requires some planning at the front end, it can really make everyone's life easier in the event that you are not competent (for whatever reason) to make your own decisions regarding your care.
The nursing home will also ask you if the admittee has a living will detailing his or her wishes in the event of a life-threatening medical event. Living wills generally detail one's wishes regarding stuff like persistant vegetative states (a la Terri Schiavo) and brain damage and extreme measures and so forth. Lots of people do not want to think about being a vegetable, but people who do not have living wills are going to end up being all veggie on national TV, like Terri Schiavo, as well as costing their families huge amounts of money. Probably it'd be a good idea to get a living will and make sure that your family, all your family, knows and promises to respect your wishes should something horrible like that actually happen.
The nursing home will want to know what kind of funeral arrangements your admittee is interested in and what his or her religious preference is. Please do not let your admittee leave you in the dark about this stuff. You will invariably guess incorrectly and then your admittee will burn in hell FOREVER. Make sure that they give you enough information to do things up right.
They'll want the medicaid/medicare and insurance information for your admittee. They will also ask some backround stuff like names of the admittee's parents (including mother's maiden name) and the admittee's place of birth. You'll also need social security number, address, date of birth, assorted points of contact (like first emergency contact, second emergency contact, etc. by name, regular phone, and cell phone) so that if something goes wrong, they know what persons-with-authority they should be calling.
In the event that you are going to be responsible for an older person, you might want to work on getting this stuff organized *before* the older person has an incident where you find yourself hampered at every turn because you don't have the fucking paperwork in order. Make up a folder of stuff and store it in a safe place. You can also use the folder to document doctor appointments, perscriptions, the phone numbers, office hours, and names of the different specialists the person is seeing, and other important information regarding his or her care. (I freely admit that we schedule most of grandma's appointments and shit on the office calendar. The secretary pays grandma's bills from her account and keeps track of her funds so that there is enough money to pay her bills. Not everyone has this luxury, I know, but the having of a folder to store all the important paperwork-y crap is not at all a bad idea whether or not you have a secretary to track things.)
Just, y'know, a heads-up for all ya'll out there with parents aged sixty to infinity and beyond.
To put someone in a nursing home, even for a temporary rehab, you need to fill out an assload of paperwork.
Assuming that the person is not capable of putting himself in a nursing home, you will need a power of attorney, or PoA. This is a document drawn up by your family lawyer to authorize someone else (usually a family member) to make decisions regarding your care when you are not able to act for yourself. Since a general-purpose PoA can grant broad-based powers (including access to your financial accounts), it's probably best to pick someone you can trust to make the right decisions in your stead. You may also wish to discuss your reasons for giving someone PoA with your attorney to see if a specific-duration or limited PoA would be more suitable for you. While this does cost money and requires some planning at the front end, it can really make everyone's life easier in the event that you are not competent (for whatever reason) to make your own decisions regarding your care.
The nursing home will also ask you if the admittee has a living will detailing his or her wishes in the event of a life-threatening medical event. Living wills generally detail one's wishes regarding stuff like persistant vegetative states (a la Terri Schiavo) and brain damage and extreme measures and so forth. Lots of people do not want to think about being a vegetable, but people who do not have living wills are going to end up being all veggie on national TV, like Terri Schiavo, as well as costing their families huge amounts of money. Probably it'd be a good idea to get a living will and make sure that your family, all your family, knows and promises to respect your wishes should something horrible like that actually happen.
The nursing home will want to know what kind of funeral arrangements your admittee is interested in and what his or her religious preference is. Please do not let your admittee leave you in the dark about this stuff. You will invariably guess incorrectly and then your admittee will burn in hell FOREVER. Make sure that they give you enough information to do things up right.
They'll want the medicaid/medicare and insurance information for your admittee. They will also ask some backround stuff like names of the admittee's parents (including mother's maiden name) and the admittee's place of birth. You'll also need social security number, address, date of birth, assorted points of contact (like first emergency contact, second emergency contact, etc. by name, regular phone, and cell phone) so that if something goes wrong, they know what persons-with-authority they should be calling.
In the event that you are going to be responsible for an older person, you might want to work on getting this stuff organized *before* the older person has an incident where you find yourself hampered at every turn because you don't have the fucking paperwork in order. Make up a folder of stuff and store it in a safe place. You can also use the folder to document doctor appointments, perscriptions, the phone numbers, office hours, and names of the different specialists the person is seeing, and other important information regarding his or her care. (I freely admit that we schedule most of grandma's appointments and shit on the office calendar. The secretary pays grandma's bills from her account and keeps track of her funds so that there is enough money to pay her bills. Not everyone has this luxury, I know, but the having of a folder to store all the important paperwork-y crap is not at all a bad idea whether or not you have a secretary to track things.)
Just, y'know, a heads-up for all ya'll out there with parents aged sixty to infinity and beyond.
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Date: 2006-02-28 02:12 pm (UTC)