My wife and I recently had my mother, who has Alzheimer's, move in with us. Dad also had dementia, so two years ago, my wife and I moved a trailer onto my parents property, so we could take care of them. They lived in a small house next to our trailer. In October, they both caught covid (unvaccinated), and dad died. Mom went to rehab for a month, then came to live with us, because we felt it wasn't safe for her to live by herself in the house. The house has no heat, just a wood stove, so it wasn't suitable anyway. (Last winter was a nightmare). So it has been a roller coaster ride having mom living with us so far. The rehab said she was at stage 5 of the 7 stages of Alzheimer's progression. One big issue is that she currently does not have a doctor. A doctor has to send the order for home health care to the health care agency that her medicare advantage insurance will pay for. Seems no area doctors are taking new patients now. Also, I have no power of attorney (mom doesn't trust lawyers), but am going to talk to a lawyer next week about getting guardianship. We don't want to put mom in managed care, because she owns 8 acres of ground, (which our trailer is sitting on), and my understanding is that the property would have to be sold for her to qualify for medicaid. The local hospital has "in home hospice care", but the nurse that came by said that mom isn't "far along enough". She would have to be not ambulatory, and incontintent before they could provide help. My wife and I are stuck with one of us always having to be with mom, (I quit my job) so its really confining. My hope is that we can manage to keep mom at home so we don't have to sell the property and lose out trailer (its too old to be moved again). So, this is a long way of saying, I feel pretty lost right now.
Mom's doctor does remote visits (on cell phone like zoom) for all appointments.
In Maryland you don't need a doctor to approve hospice. You can self refer and the hospice
RN comes out and puts in the paperwork to get approved.
I've had Mom admitted to hospice twice. Neither time required MOM to have a doctor visit for admittance.
(Which I actually disagree with but it was what it was.)