A bit of backstory: six years ago, my mom was diagnosed with end stage renal failure after not having kept her diabetes in check her whole adult life. We found this out right after moving out of our family home after her and my dad's divorce. We lived together for three years, and I was everything in a caretaker that I could be: taking her to dialysis, watching what she ate, it was all pretty simple at first. She decided to move out on her own after tensions started building between us, and her health quickly started to deteriorate. Due to complications with her disease, she has since had her foot and a finger amputated, suffered a severe heart attack, and has overall heart problems. She is fairly dependent on others for living as she is confined to a wheelchair and doesn't do any sort of exercise to keep up her strength.
She had to have a follow-up surgery on her amputated leg about a month ago and has been at a nursing home/ assisted living facility since for rehab and care.
Due to some divorce agreements, my mother had come into quite a bit of money upon my dad refinancing their house and basically buying her out of her part of it. Not enough to live on forever, but enough that she now has a sizeable savings. That, combined with my mother's insurance terminated and subsequently refiled for after she moved out of state, has led her to be inelligible to reapply. We have had lawyers involved but no one seems to think there is anything we can due to get her reinstated with insurance.
As of now, she is still at her long term care facility, but racking up quite a bill (we were hoping insurance would back-pay when everything got sorted) with no possibility of insurance. She needs constant care and help with daily living habits (i.e. going to the bathroom, dressing, showering). The facility said that the only real option, however, is that my mother moves in with me.
I am 28 years old. Between coming home to be supportive of my younger sister during our parents' divorce to taking care of my mother for several years, I have put my own life on hold. I have yet to finish school for various reasons, but a major factor being that I keep taking time off to help with everyone else's needs. I feel like my life hasn't been my own for the past six years. And now, just as I put my foot down last year and tell my mother that I am unable to take care of her, she is shoved right back at me with even more problems than before. I feel like a failure of a daughter, but the thought of her living with me again is nearly unbearable. There doesn't seem to be any other option, though, and I feel backed into a corner. This will not be a healthy situation for either of us, but I don't see what else there is to do!
If anyone has any advice on any sort of actions that I could look into, they would be greatly appreciated.
I have been taking care of my mother off and on for the past six years and it has greatly impacted my life in negative ways. She is currently ineligible for Medicare/Medicaid but needs a place to live that provides care. It has been recommended that she and I find a place to live, but I don't know that I can handle all her needs and am looking for advice.
do not let them discharge to you. Period. If you punch back HARD, they will have to do their jobs and find a place to discharge her to that will be safe for her,
this may require the state to step in...well, ok...Sobeit.
keep repeating, I cannot provide for her. She cannot come here it isn’t a safe place for her. Just repeat that. No matter what they say.. just repeat that.
I'm not clear on what you said about your mother's insurance. Do you mean medical/health insurance, long-term care insurance, or publicly funded benefits such as Medicare or Medicaid. I don't think anyone can advise you about the possibility of reinstatement until it's clear what kind of coverage she had that has now lapsed.
With your mother's health concerns and no or expensive insurance, she is going to be broke and on Medicaid someday soon. I suggest you start looking for an AL apartment which accepts Medicaid payments after a period of private pay. Even if you need to stay in the apartment with her and sleep on the couch when she is first discharged, please get her setup in her own place where she can receive the care, meals, housekeeping help, and transportation services she will need so you can walk away and live your own life.
If your mother can qualify as disabled, she can draw SSD and be eligible for Medicare as her primary insurance which may reduce expenses as help her private pay the AL for a longer period.
You are a very good daughter to have helped your mother so much in the past. You have a right to live your own life too. Going forward, be your mother's advocate and maybe very occasionally helper. Finish your education and start your own career and family!
I will definitely look into other forms of insurance for her as well, thank you, I didn't know if anything would even be available considering all her conditions. We'll see what we can come up with!
It may be remotely possible that Medicaid will want to be repaid all the money that they paid out in the past, before your mother got the inheritance. If that’s the rule, it will cope with the spend-down issue straight away, so it may not be too disastrous anyway. Contact Medicaid and ask. They know their own rules better than most lawyers. Otherwise your mother spends down until she is eligible again. As Mstrbill says, it’s a good idea for her to be in a facility where eventually she can be a Medicaid resident.
Try your question on a friend first – this is complicated, and I certainly didn’t get the real picture initially. Make sure that you are making the situation clear when you ask.