Emergency Funds For Elder Home Care

Hello,

I'm so sorry to hear of your mom's health issues!  I can definitely understand why you'd want to avoid repeating a rehab stay for her after your experiences!

Have you fully looked into the coverage your mom has for such home care under her health insurance?  Is she on Medicare?  Medicaid?  Another plan?  The reason I ask is because if there is two-fold.  The first is that she may have excellent benefits that will leave you out a very little amount of money.  The second is that if she has any coverage, the bill for the care would likely first be submitted to that carrier and then they'd send you a bill for the co-insurance.  You may have several weeks before any money is due.  You may not need emergency funds.

Last, I've found from personal experience that if you're working with a financial situation that has a resolution in near sight, doctors and other agencies are often willing to work with you.  Sometimes they're willing to do a reasonable payment plan.  Other times they're willing to give you a specified grace period in which to pay without penalty (a few weeks to a few months). 

Best of luck to you!  And hopefully someone else has info about emergency funds just to give you a safety net.

Missy--

Thanks much for you email.  We appreciated it.

We have, for the most part, confirmed that my mother would require 24 hour care--but with the need for specialized home health care for cardiac patients, in general, but, more specifically, with the need for cardiac patients who incurred recent pacemaker implantations.

Therefore, her upper body strength, and her ability to improve her upper body strength, will be limited, at first--especially in her home environment, where agressive physical therapy will be reduced by space, services, and equipment.

We have (pretty much) determined that although she would surely be eligible for physical therapy services at home--if we took her home--it is quite likely that it would be harder for her to return to her baseline strength, if she went home directly.

Her degenrative arthritis, of her right hip, further complicates matters--and for the first few weeks, if not longer, all these factors might compel her to receive bedside attendance.  24 hour care is not avaliable through Medicare.  Home Health Care is avaliable--but, as far as we have determined, not for 24 hour coverage.

We haven't had a chance to look into her Medex opition, under Blue Corss--but we assume that we would have heard of a 24 hour option, by now, from major insurance coverage, via general knowlege or word of mouth.

But, in any  case, not only are we so busy looking at rehab centers and making arrangements for my mother's care--but we have pretty much determined, when considering all factors, that we also have no choice but to put her into a Rehab center.

We did not think that we could set all these specialized services up in time--even though we are quite wary of her going to a Rehab Center.  We also were not sure that we could even come close to creating the home rehab environment that would be similar to the kind of rehab services that would be offered by accredited insititutions.

If you like, I can relate to you, and to the members of your web site, the extremely risky proposition of finding a rehab center after the MDs in hospitals determine that  patients, who may need rehab, are stabilized and would therefore no longer need hospitalization and would therefore no longer be covered by Medicare, in a hospital. 

This a COMMON OCCURRENCE--and users of your web site, who care for the elderly--and, very likely, other caregivers who care for other patients from populations who are disabled and who need rehab--should be apprised of this problem:

Hospital exert pressure on patients and their families to find Rehabs--before these rehabs are properly examined and evaluations are prudently made by the families and/or significant others/caregivers.

Thanks again.

This reply, above, is from the individual who wrote the original inquiry about a search for emergencyr funds.