I’d like to also add that from what I’ve learned dealing with my father in law’s situation, Medicare will only pay for a certain amount of days in a rehabilitative facility and there is a co-payment for that. In our case, dad was in the nursing home from the end of October until Dec. 31 so almost exactly 2 months. Medicare covered what it did and we got a bill from the nursing home for $5000+ which was his $133 per day Medicare Co-pay. Your situation may be different depending on which medicare plan she’s on but I don’t think that medicare will pay indefinitely for a nursing home.
I know it seems at times like the system is working against you but the discharge planner and social worker are there to assist you and your family with making these decisions. In our case they were kind and compassionate and very easy to work with.
Broomstick, I don’t deny that sepsis is a very serious illness, particularly for an 88 year old woman, and the potential causes for such an illness is a very long list, some of which represent underlying medical conditions which would warrant an investigation of hospice options. However, the OP has not chosen to provide an in-depth explanation of what led to this infection, and I think it might be premature for other posters to jump to the conclusion, “hospice!”
Even the very old can have the ability to recover from serious infections and moderately long hospital stays.
No, as has been pointed out numerous time on the SDMB by Canadians, Canadian medicine is not a huge mess. We Canadians have an excellent socialized health care system. For example, if your grandparents were in Ontario and had an income of over $24,175 per year, their deductible would be $100 per year, following which each prescription would be $6.11. If their income was less, they would pay less.
I am sorry your grandparents are stuck with a system that has let them down. I hope the USA picks up its socks with respect to health care.
Eonwe, I’m not sure why you see the situation as “she doesn’t get free stuff if she goes home” instead of “she’s getting free stuff while she’s in the hospital.” You take “getting free stuff” to be what should be the default state of things. And then you wonder why the medical system is all screwed up.
I know this thread is mainly about you feeling bad about your grandmother’s situation, and that does suck, but you started the conversation about the state of the medical system generally. The medical system is just made up of people, and to the extent those people think that health care is some special thing that should always be free for certain segments of the population, it will continue to be screwed up.
Yes, this is about eonwe’s feelings about his grandmother. If you wish to discuss health care, please start a new thread, rather than being a jerk and hijacking this thread.
Thanks all for the advice and concern. I figure if I posted this OP I at least owe you all an update (sorry for the lj-ishness of this).
Grandma is going home today! She’s been extremely strong-willed about this whole process, and a few days ago they did a . . . not ‘home audit,’ but basically she went to her home with someone who assessed whether she could go home and still be self sufficient (get in and out of bed, use the bathroom, walk around, etc etc). They had no recommendations for changes, and so she’s home today.
She still has one week left of her expensive antibiotics (about $1000 a day, which fortunately my grandparents are in a position to pay). And then we’ll see what happens. She still has her infection, so who knows what will happen in a week when she goes off those drugs and onto different ones. But for now she’s home.
Thanks for all the suggestions about hospice and so forth. I’ve not been directly involved with the planning, interfacing with doctors, and so on, so my descriptions of what’s going on are second hand, so some of the details have eluded me a bit.
One thing I’ve been learning is that it is hard to care for a loved one who’s suffering from a major medical ailment. And I’m not even doing a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’ so to speak, but am kind of backup to my mom, and just trying to be helpful to everyone and have a happy smile. But I’ve been drained emotionally just kind of being the one who helps everyone else stay positive.
My girlfriend came to town over new years and met my mom and grandparents for the first time . . . in the hospital where we celebrated my grandparents’ 66th wedding anniversary (on New Years Day). I celebrated my 30th birthday in the nursing home with my family last weekend. I was happy to do all these things, but it’s tough celebrating with a giant white elephant in the room (no, I didn’t get an elephant for my birthday ).
Oh, and Rand Rover, thanks for your concern (and twickster, thanks for modding), but I’ve decided to happily take your points to Great Debates, if you’d like to follow me there.
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