Dude, if you call 911 you’ll probably make the night of some bored firefighters who do the first response. They can help you get out of the chair and at least get you into bed where you have a chance at being comfortable, and might be able to contact an appropriate social service department on your behalf.
Just call, okay? Or if you can’t bring yourself to 911 call the non-emergency number, let them decide the issue. Just call someone, please.
Thanks for caring enough to respond to this. Thanks to everyone, for that matter.
Only 6 hours before my GP’s office opens. I have a long relationship with her, and she’s been a great help to me in teh past, as much as she can be. I’ll call her and fill her in, maybe she can accelerate my admission if I call her before I call for an ambulance. I’ll try to grab some sleep in the meantime.
I called my GP, I called my home health care nurse (whom I haven’t seen yet)
I called an ambulance.
Don’t forget the lawyer.
Then your federal and state representatives. It wont help your immediate issues (see above) but ultimately the healthcare system in your country needs to be fixed.
I’d still start with having the GP or hospital call the insurance company and request more rehab and/or an inpatient stay or letting OP stay at a rehab facility to ride this out. I’ll also emphasize contacting the insurance broker as they’ll know the insurance plan inside and out and may even be able to offer some more insight.
After than, at least in my state, the next call would be to the commissioner of insurance. They’re government official that oversees unfair practices by insurance companies.
But if your insurance plan only allows a certain number of rehab visits, your doctor calling up and requesting more is probably the first thing to do. It may be as simple as that.
When my Wife got sick after an IronMan race in an unfamiliar town, I called 911.
They took her stats in the hotel room and calmed her down (she was hyperventilating, and I think a bit of heat exhaustion/lack of electrolytes).
Anyway, the cost was zero. Since she did not make a ride, we where not charged a thing.
JoeyP - You’re EMS? Is this common not to be charged if you don’t take the ride? (this was Boulder Colorado)
For future reference, calling 9-1-1 does not mean you must go for an ambulance ride. I remember a call I took where a lady just needed help getting up from a chair. Since the police were closest and available they handled the matter. The officer told me it made her night and she would be glad to handle such calls any day.
So it’s really not a burden to call 9-1-1, all the more so if you are medically fragile and home alone like the OP. Helping people is what 9-1-1 is there for.
No, I’m not EMS. I don’t know what you’d be billed for if they just come out and help you but don’t take you anywhere.
Thank you for this. It was the absolute right thing to do.
Please, please let us all know the outcome. I would have driven myself to you to assist/help if you are anywhere near me!
This insight may be of help (I’m retired from first-responder stuff/Med Imaging of every sort, Lab Tech, etc) : Generally, Physical Therapy is who writes-off a person’s abilities to ‘live alone’ (not always, but Docs rely on such info more often than not, and also the Nursing notes). PT’s are overwhelmigly honest for the most part, and be sure to emphasize your struggles/difficulties to them. Make certain prob’s are ‘charted’ for Doc(s) to review/evaluate!
I recently spent about 4-ish months in hospital bed (and basically no memory of it except for last week or two) and the Doc kept saying how I was improving on the getting-around part. He was ready to let me go home until I asked if he reviewed all the PT input. He said “yes”, but turns out PT was not charting my prob’s. Just the day before he scheduled my discharge, I went to pick a piece of paper on floor, and discovered that my legs would not work to get me back up, so I sat down and could not get up even with all 4 limbs working as hard as they could. That was not charted, and Doc immediately got PT to test me out in his presence - I failed miserably despite trying my hardest (felt like an infant!). With that ‘new’ knowledge, I was kept longer. Insurance (BCBS-OK) had zero issue w/ that and I strengthened over next week or two to ‘reliably’ performing strenght tests and all. Look into specifics like that, as it just might be what got ya discharged earlier than should’ve been done.
Get well soon, I hope, FILB…
Thank you for letting us know that you called. I was worried about you! Keep us posted too, if you can. If there’s anything we can do to help, let us know that too.
Yes, thanks indeed, it’s worrisome to know a bad situation is going on and nothing can be done about it. Hope you get the help you need to recover fully!
Ditto.
I used to Fall Down A Lot, and after a few months of it, in Grand Central Station, terrifically embarrassed, I asked someone to call 911, and just stayed on the damn floor. Absolutely. (Motor-cortex anomaly. Who knew?)
I hope not hearing anything means that Face is getting the necessary care in a facility.
Wow. I do hope you’re doing better.
Thanks to everyone for their help and concern.
I’m in the local hospital. While I’m here, one of the doctors wants an mri on my back, and a neuro scan of some sort to investigate why I lost so much leg strength in such a short time. Have to admit I didn’t question it. I’m so used to badly swollen legs and other fun things that I didn’t question the weakness. I’m already having back issues due to my prednisone, so that might come into play.
I’ll be here until tomorrow, maybe longer if they need time for tests. After that, they’ll find me a spot in a rehab facility. Think the insurance should cover me for another two weeks or so. That is RIGHT NOW’S take on things, we’ll see what they’re saying in five minutes.
So, I’m off the chair, in a bed, and at least that much in my life is better. Now to grow stronger.
As to everyone who advocates getting a lawyer… Perhaps you are right, but I can barely navigate my way through getting helped out of a dirty diaper. My mind is scrambled, I just want to be warm and safe and clean-ish while I get healed up.
You have two weeks in rehab (inpatient?), so once you get to day 10 or so out of 15, if you think you’re going to need it, have the rehab facility and your doctor start making calls to the insurance company. That’ll give them a few days to play phone tag and cut through some red tape while you’re still there instead of being right back where you started.
Those last few days would also be the time to have the rehab people do some type of evaluation so that it’s ready to give to the insurance company if they need more convincing.
Also, I don’t know what type of rehab you’re doing, but if it’s anything physical, they should be showing you how to get around your house. How to get out of a chair by yourself, how to get out of bed by yourself, how to pick something up off the ground by yourself (like a dropped cell phone). If you’re not independent enough to not pose a threat to your own health, you’re probably not ready to be home alone.
I’m glad you’re in a safe place. I hope things continue to improve. Please continue to let us know how things are going.
It has been my experience, after a decade of dealing with family members in poor health and/or dying, that that conversation almost never takes place. The powers that be don’t want to hear it. They assume there is family/support in place, that said family will drop everything to care for the sick person. And the older and poorer the patient the less likely there is to be that conversation.
And while it’s easy to say there should be home visits for assistance that often doesn’t happen either. When my husband was dying I was basically expected to care for him 24/7 without respite (our insurance was very reluctant to admit him to hospice - I got the approval letter about a week after he died).
Since we entered the era of the Holy Cost Reduction this sort of thing is distressingly common.
For everyone’s general information, in most US communities, you can call 911 and request a “lift assist.”
They send out firefighters who lift you off floor/chair and move you to where you need to be.
In most communities this is a free service. It’s not for daily transfers but for the occasional whoops
Remember this also if you are a caretaker. It’s usually unsafe for one person to lift another by themselves. You don’t want to end up with two people on the floor.
Of course a lot of times if you can’t get up, you may need additional care (as we have just seen) so if the fall was for an unknown reason, make sure you call medics, not lift assist.
Also, most communities have a free or low-cost service (often through the fire dept) that telephones you at the same time every day. If you don’t pick up, they summon a person of your choosing or EMS.
Above bolding mine
To add to this, when my MIL was sent home from rehab after her last hospital/rehab stay, we were able to get her a “life alert” type system for free through Catholic Charities as she was prone to falling, and was still quite weak when we got her home (no questions were asked AT ALL regarding anyone’s “faith” or church affiliation). Checking with the social workers at the rehab facility would, imo, be worthwhile if only to get the name of resources in your area who can provide this type of free service.