Monday, March 31, 2014

Bad Business!

Last week really was!  ...Naughty, bad hospice company!

Some of you know that I am a caregiver for my mother who has Alzheimer's Disease.  She is now bedridden, and is in a bad way mentally and in rapid decline, but her nearly 99 year old body is still pretty healthy.  Anyway, I had been very dis-satisfied for a few months now with the hospice company that has been providing services for her.  They changed over leadership, and have been so corrupted by greed that they were making good, solid experienced employees leave and the others were fired, and have hired less satisfying employees to replace them.   Care has been a chore with the new people, and supplies were not brought in sufficiently or appropriately.  So, last week I decided to change to a new company.  Well, there is huge $$$ in hospice care.  Medicare pays an average of $150 per day for patients and my mother requires so little additional care that they only met the basic requirements of one nurse visit per week and one social worker visit per month and a re-certification visit each 60 days.  That means for around 4-1/2 hours per month they get about $4500.  Do I wish that the government was putting all that in my pocket!  My mom is a "cash cow" in other words.  Minimal care and cost and maximum $$moola$$.  Long story short:  they made all the trouble for me to switch that they could, including withholding transfer forms and trying to get Mom bumped out of the system  They wanted to pick up the bed and all her equipment the very next morning at 9 AM.  Considering she sleeps about 20 hours a day now I had to tell them I was not home and wouldn't be able to accommodate them until later in the afternoon.  Luckily, the new company jumped through a lot of hoops and we had a bed and other equipment by 7:30 that evening.  I don't think Tidewater is done with me yet, as I plan to let a few people know like the referring doctor, Medicare and the Better Business Bureau.

2 comments:

  1. Mardi, I keep on getting back to this post. I am so sorry that you are in such a terrible situation, with which I can commiserate to some extent - but yours is so much more aggravating. One always says that a society should be judged by the way it treats their weakest members... Sometimes this wisdom became obsolete and disappeared in the modern and overly greedy institutions in which we find ourselves, do we want it or not. What can I wish for you ? Health, inner strength, joyful days despite it all, love by family and friends... You are a strong woman and I hope you can maintain that strength by drawing on the love of many, including moi across the ocean, my dear friend!

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    1. Laura, you are such a precious person. I really do hope that we will meet face-to-face one day so I can give you a huge hug.

      I am finding that the new company, which is very large here in the state, is really wanting. There are so many things left un-done, and the respite nursing home care was not up to par as per my opinion in comparison to what my mother had previously. She has a wonderful nurse, but the company is always short on supplies. That I cannot understand as they should have a very good idea of what is needed by their patients and order accordingly. I wonder on a weekly basis if I will have enough diapers and bed chux, skin repair cream and body shampoo to last. I have learned to try to keep some extra supplies on hand so that they can be used if needed. Fortunately, I can afford to purchase supplies if needed, but many persons under hospice care are living alone and impoverished. They have little recourse in a situation such as this. It has become a shame that companies are operating with such shabby standards.

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