He has to be mad at someone
 

That's what I overheard the nurse say yesterday, "His mother is dying, he has to be mad at someone."
Yeah, I'm angry.
The medicare/health insurance mess is different it every state, of course. There are some states where it is worse than in Ohio, but Ohio is pretty bad. I can’t believe they complain about costs and waste money so profligately.
My mother is, well, there is no way to sugar coat it, she’s dying of cancer. She was moved from the hospital to one of the best nursing homes in Ohio a few days ago. For some idiotic bureaucratic reason she is officially there for rehabilitation – medicare/health insurance won’t pay for simply taking care of her until she dies, even though everyone knows she has rapidly advancing, incurable cancer. So they pay for a physical therapist to come into her room twice a week and tell her to raise her arms two or three times. That’s it. If he doesn’t come in and sign off that she’s getting PT, they’ll throw her out of the place. Yesterday we found out that on Friday they are paying to have an ambulance take her 35 miles to see her regular GP. Yes - she’s been seen multiple times by her oncologist, radiologists, hospitalists, nutritionists, cancer radiation therapy doctor guy whatever the hell he’s called, and probably more in the hospital and has a GP who sees her every day at the care facility, but she wants to be taken to her doc, so they’re paying for two medical technicians and a big ass ambulance to spend half a day taking her to yet another GP. I suppose this would be acceptable if they were showering unlimited money on her, but they will not pay for anything after she’s been there 100 days. Anything. Granted, she’s not expected to live 100 days, but it makes no sense to me to pay for every ridiculous thing they can think up for 100 days and then cut the “client” off completely. How can they call that good care?
Our health care system is so wasteful, inefficient and just plain f-ed up it’s a wonder anyone survives it. And this is the best in the world??
End of rant. Sorry.

Pat-I don't think you need to apologize for a rant after going through all this. I think you deserve one.

I feel for you. My mother is 99 YO and will turn 100 in Aug. She has Alzheimer's and can't hear w/o hearing aids. She is in a nursing home and basically either a wheel chair or walker and on oxygen. They wanted to send her out to have her hearing checked a month ago, I said NFW. She can't carry on a conversation and doesn't remember anything. Just a very sad situation. Most unfortunate for my mother is that we pay for all her care and so particularly sad to see her not have much (if any) quality of life.

Sorry you and your mother have to be subjected to this. The system is obviously grossly lacking.

Patrick,

I agree. You have every right to sound off.
I suggest you use this in hope something might be changed. Send copies to your congressman, representative, governor, state Legislative Assembly rep, the state health board chair and your local newspapers and TV stations.

Sorry you're going through this.
Les

Our medical system is a bunch of battling corporations and bureaucracies. It's rules vs. rules with little human oversight. And the irony is that we only find that out when we are least able to cope with it. Patrick, very sorry to hear about your mother.

Try not to focus on those things now Patrick... try and get as much time with yer mum now, even if it hurts to see her like that. It will help you later on, to know you did everything you could to be with her now.
Trust me on that, i've gone through a similar thing with my grandma, not cancer, but just really old age, slowly withering away .. when she went to the hospital with a broken hip, i was there all the time, and i still can look back at those days and feel good about the little things like sitting by her bed for 5 hours, holding her hand while she slept.. but waking up in time to squeeze hand and ask me not to go , when i stood up to go stretch my legs and go for a leak.

Patrick,

I feel for your mother and hope for the best for your family!

I do not see it as a rant at all. Very logical from your situation and I hope it was beneficial for your mental health to type it out.

It does get better. I know I was one of very few people who comprehended that my father was dying. That comprehension and the ability to spend some quality time with him made the end easier for me than those around me. It does get better. Hang in there are feel free to vent whatever frustration at the board! It's something we are here for!

Just a damned tough time in the best of circumstances...and there are no "best" circumstances at a time like this.

Rant away, man...

i'd be pissed!

my stepdad is getting pretty good care. i'm happy and surprised by it. cancer is a mofo.

Sardonic humor here...Hospice offers "grief counseling" after a loved one passes. A friend decided to do the counseling bit after his mother died. Was told by the woman running the group therapy that he couldn't join the group because he was "angry"...:confused:

Just my personal observation...many of these counselor types are less balanced than those they try to help.

Patrick:I am sorry to hear about your grief.

But bureaucracies are bureaucracies.

If you like black humor here's my story.

My father was given a week to live, and so placed in a nice private room in the Palliative Care ward of the hospital.

When he was still alive after 7 days, a social worker from the Palliative Care Unit—a completely arrogant, insensitive young beotch from Bombay—started sneaking into my fathers room and telling him he would be moved to a Hospice because his time in Palliative Care "was up".

This upset my father greatly. He just wanted to be left alone to die. Not moved around town. And it also supremely pissed me off, and I tore a strip off the social worker for speaking to my father without me present-given his complete incapacity.

She then got the hospital bureaucracy fired up. It seems, Palliative Care is only for people who require medical "care" in order to die. Not people who no longer require "care" in order to die.

This is of course a fine Hobbesian distinction that I spent many hours debating with the social worker and hospital staff. She, for reasons best known to her, had made it her mission to get my father out of the hospital—even though there were two empty rooms on the PC ward. I swear I came extremely close to throwing this person out of the 10th floor window at one point.

As it turned out my father lived another week, and stayed in the Palliative Care room. His last week was completely marred by the social worker repeatedly telling him he was going to be moved, and by bureaucrats debating whether he continued to be eligible for palliative care. Often these debates took place in front of him. This was really regrettable, and in retrospect I should have thrown that beotch out of the window when I had the chance.

Sorry to hear of your mother's condition.

I don't know what type of insurance coverage your mother has. But for the most part the bureaucracy you're facing comes handed down from the almighty federal government. After all, they're the ones who set Medicare rules. And even if your mother was being treated via private insurance, most insurances follow the guidelines set by Medicare (albeit with some variation), so indirectly Medicare is directing those treatment algorithms, as well.

nah..
should have offered to buy her lunch...
but let's take the stairs...

Rika...

Put your anger away for now. You will have all the time for that later. As said before spend your time and energies with your mom. It will hurt, and it will not be easy, but it will help. My mom passed a couple of years ago and was in a coma the last week. I was the last person with her, it hurt like hell but she wasn't alone. We took turns staying with her and she had family there 24 hours a day.
Your medical battle can wait, for now, go help your mom, she needs her family.
The insurance company will be there when you get around to them.

I know you can be obscure, but wtf? :confused:

Z,
I was referring to Dott's story..
he wanted to toss her out the window..
the stairwell would have been a bit more private..

if folks want to play paper and rule games..
fine..
but don't do it in front of / or over a dying patient..

Rika

Rika,

I don't think he was mad so much at the individual nurse as he was at the bureaucratic garbage and attendant lack of big picture awareness, instead. Our medical system is full of things that sound great and proper on paper, but often have little real-world practicality.

Pat,
I'm sorry for what you and your mother are going through. We are going through the same thing with a very good friend right now and we went through it all 5 years ago with my grandfather. Nothing is as sick or as broken as our health care system, IMHO... My prayers are with you and your mother...