I am my Mom's POA and have handled all her stuff for many years now. She has been in skilled nursing for about 3 years now and had part-time health care at home previous to that.
Anyway, I am sooooooo tired and burnt out trying to figure things out financially
for the nursing home payments. I feel as if I am going to explode.
Can I get my brother to take over being POA. I really don't think he will want the responsibility. Other than that, what choice do I have?
I can't believe it has come to this. I've always been able to handle things and do a good job of it, but I feel I just don't have the mental stamina to continue to figure things out.
I feel the pressure too as we near running out of money. Do you have any of Mom's assets you can sell easily. Each of us has our own set of unique challenges. Think carefully before you give up POA. Chances are if your brother is not much help, he will not do as good a job of POA as you have.
Hang in there and look for some support before you throw in the towel!!
It's very tiring and mentally stressful as it is, but if you resigned, would the stress of another POA not handling things properly be any better for you? Are there things that you take care of that you could hire out (using your mother's funds) instead?
This community has a lot of people with a wide range of experiences. Is there anything you could share that someone may be able to provide a resource to take that duty over for you?
Clearly you are doing a good job, and can see how stressful it is. You are allowed as POA to lighten your load - is there anything you could have someone else manage?
Best wishes.
The main problem now is that Medicaid wants statements for 5 years
now with ALL receipts/invoices and explanations of anything written
or deposited in her two accounts.
I do not have all the receipts, can try and get some invoices from a couple
of big projects on her home the previous year, but I can't even imagine trying
to gather so terribly much paperwork. I've sent a lot of paperwork in in the past.
I just don't have it in me to gather ALL this stuff and even if I try and do, there will
most certainly be some I won't be able to get or they may just ask for more, then
more again, then some more.
I called a couple of Senior Advocates and they said there is no other option but to
send in anything they want. I have been trying to figure out a way to take her back to her house and hire part time help, but not enough money left. I've considered other nursing homes, not enough money left in her account.
I love my mother to death but, I just am out of solutions for her future care without any more financial resources. She is 90 years old. Will the nursing home evict her
and put her out on the street? I just don't know what to do anymore. I've called so many organizations, Medicaid office, Eldercare Advocates, etc., all to no avail.
I feel as if I am going to explode from the worry and stress! Any knowledgeable suggestions as to where I can get help or where I can place her without Medicaid will be greatly appreciated.
But just as the longest journey starts with a single step, so the most skull-numbing excruciating bookkeeping task begins with the first piece of paper.
Pick it up. Groan. Put it down. Go and get a cup of coffee. Come back to desk. Gaze through window. Twirl cowlick. Adjust chair. Readjust chair. Wonder what that bit of gunk making one chair leg go wobbly is. Decide not to pick it off with thumbnail. Sharpen pencil. Wonder if you should ring your friend back to check on her after that wrangle she had with her hairdresser the other day...
Thing is. You've got the paperwork you've got. You might just as well get it organised and summarised and filed. At least then you will know what information you still need to track down; and then you can go on breaking the whole hideous task down bit by bit into #1 get a copy of this receipt, #2 ask contractor to re-send estimate, etc. etc.; and you can make a dedicated To Do list of those and pick 'em off one by one.
And if you *are* left with a few mysterious entries and no real idea what the odd $4.99 was for here and there, try sticking them under 'Ad hoc household and personal expenditure' and see how much these items add up to. Unless it's frankly cheeky, I doubt if Medicaid will give you a hard time over it.
Then as I found item A, I would put a sticky with the letter A on it and start looking for the other requested items. I had quite the Easter egg hunt, as there were bills marked paid for over 10 years in some instances, magazines, every issue, for about the same time. I'll bet I thru away 4 large trash cans of magazines alone. All together I had to ask for several extensions to get the information they asked for, but after around 4 months finally got it all submitted. PHEW!
Dealing with insurance companies was the worst, even getting them to accept a POA. It was a PIA.
I think you CAN do this. You have been there for your mother and you have it in you. Think of all the people who eventually got approved for Medicaid.. many who i'm sure did not have all receipts saved up for 5 years. Get what receipts you can, explain as best you can the deposits and expenditures so Medicaid knows your moms financial affairs were handled correctly. Do the best you can with what you have.
When its all done you will look back on this with pride that you were able to follow through. Take a deep breath, get a plan together.. get some action going. One step at a time.
Also.. I'm no expert but I have read that a NH cannot kick out a resident without having somewhere safe to go where they are cared for.
(((hugs)))
Go to an Elder Attorney and tell him you wish to stop being POA. I believe she will become a "ward of the state" if you do that. But an Elder Attorney will know. You can even call and ask.
Boy, what a mess. I did call the Nursing Home Office Mgr. and dug for information. She said for me to get the statements and send them in. I will try and meet with her
next Monday and show her the statements to see what she thinks. She said she doesn't have a number to call that will get her to someone in the Mediciad office any quicker than I can and that they won't give her any information since she is not authorized. And she also tells me that they do NOT assign one Case Mgr to us anymore, so whenever either of us call, we get whomever answers the phone that day!
I told her if the Medicaid office would only tell us what they deemed to be a Red Flag on the account, why can't they tell us so that we can focus on getting that issue corrected or addressed. It is amazing to me how unhelpful and uninformative the
Medicaid office is, yet they want us to provide an unimaginable amount of info to
them. We shall see, I am going to send the bank statements, maybe a couple of receipts or bills to show she has home insurance, etc.
The real sad thing is that my parents lived very simple lives, provided for us kids,
spent only for necessities, never spent money on themselves or us for anything extravagant and we have always been honest and decent people doing everything on the up and up and now we are met with such opposition. Then I see people getting all kinds of help with food, free medical, free dental, nice house paid for, etc. And many of these people are young and strong and able to work, but just don't want to. There is something seriously wrong with the system and the sad thing is I believe it is going to get much harder for the elderly to get any type of help.
If you haven't already done so, you may seriously consider setting up online bill pay and just adding the nursing home as a payee but only set this up from your end with the next bill you get with the account number and contact info of the payee. Have this, on time in full each month.
The other option is to just turn your mom's check over to the nursing home
The best thing we did for my in-laws was to drag MIL to an Elder Care lawyer as soon as she finally admitted that FIL needed more care than she was able to provide at home. The attorney got him qualified for Medicaid really quickly, without the 5 years of bank statements, etc., that I had already tried to accumulate. He took copies of 3 months of statements and bills, a list of their assets, insurance, etc., and shuffled assets to her name alone. When Medicaid asked for more info--most of which he had already supplied--he took care of it.
Expensive? Cost was about the same as a month in the NH. FIL has been in NH 5 months now that Medicaid has paid all of, except for his SS check. What a bargain, in my opinion.
I don't know whether Medicaid trusts Elder Care lawyers that they deal with to make sure claims are legit before they submit them or what; but that's the only explanation I have for the ease of qualifying.
I forgot one very import thing. I got on my computer, and used Google. The things I didn't know, Google did. Forget about your brother. He won't help. Most social workers don't help at all. Ours was a big lump of
S**t. (Pardon my French)
I feel your pain and know how you feel. I'm in the same boat and can't get help other than part time caregivers at home. The paper work makes you crazy especially when the government is concerned. I haven't gotten to the medicaid part yet. I hope you get some much needed help soon. Is there a social worker who could help you? If there is no money how do you pay for lawyers? It is so sad that our government can't take better care of the people who have worked hard all their lives. Other countries take care of the elderly. You are a wonderful daughter. Be proud of yourself. I worked in a nursing home for many years. I don't know of anyone kicked out in the street. Hang tough and take one day at a time. Thinking of you. You can pm me if you want.
Anyway, I am going to meet with the Nursing Home Financial Mgr early next week and take the statements to review and see if she can give me any helpful suggestions. I'm doing everything I can. The Medicaid office was NO help to me whatsoever. I was surprised about that too. Just amazing, if they cant give me more detailed info, then that's a pretty sad organization and a
very sad situation for the elderly folks in need of help. We shall see, but at
this point I am not feeling optimistic at all. I just pray we can come up with another option for my Mom's welfare and care if they evict her.
Were you, surprised? Really?
The difficulty is that you have had charge of your mother's finances for years. So even if you were to resign your POA, you would still be accountable for what has already gone on and you can still be required to provide supporting paperwork. I truly do feel the heartsink of it but there is no way round this.
Did you miss Llamalover's idea of getting a CPA to help you? It looks to me like it's a question of "finding the end of the thread" so that you can untangle everything, and that sort of job is easier and friendlier with someone experienced on hand. The NH's financial manager might be a good start, though - hope it goes well.
I totally, totally understand this feeling. I have it too.
As you and many others said here, I often feel like crawling under my desk or hiding under the duvet where nobody can find me and ask me yet some other paperwork... It's just life-draining, and the feeling of unfairness makes me want to scream sometimes out of anger and frustration.
There is just one thing that helps me, which is precisely what you said. The opposition.
The opposition is there for a reason, I came to realize, it is just an attempt to make things so hard for us that we'll give up. For this very reason, I won't frickin give up!
I'm carefully planning the steps in tiny little ones that we'll allow me to keep living my life and helping my mom at the same time without being completely sucked by the enormity of the task the government, the utilities companies and the system in general are asking me.
This is a HUGE battle, and I'll need all my strength if I want to survive. And yes, as many others pointed out, I'll need help too. Lawyers, accountants, social workers, but I was also thinking to even hire a student or someone who needs a part time job for some time to help me finding documents, scanning them etc...
Caregiver, we'll make it. They won't have our skin.
With much support.
This is one of those " just do it" situations.