Can my mother whose on Medicaid now be forced to share a room with a smoker?
My mother has been living in an assisted living facility in her own apt for almost 2 years. She is now on medicaid and must share a 2 bedroom apt. The woman they want her to room with is a smoker and very sloppy. My mother is neat as a pin. I went to see the room yesterday and it reaks of smoke. I've been told that the smoker will be leaving soon - 3-4 weeks - but I don't want my mother to be subjected to the smell. Plus all of her belongings and clothes will smell of smoke. I don't think it's fair to do this to my mother. The woman obviously smokes in the room when she can get away with it and it really upsets me that my mother has to put up with this even for a few weeks. My mother is upset about it b/c everyone talks about this woman b/c she stinks and therefore the apt stinks. I've been complaining about this to management and they're giving me lip service and tell me it will only be temporary. I don't know what to do. I feel they're being so unfair to my mother. I have a hard enough time to get my siblings to go visit her. Doesn't my mother have any rights? It's so unfair and it's making me crazy.
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Here's my suggestion. You need to get things done to change your mom's medical history so that she can qualify for and show the need for "skilled nursing" AKA a nursing home. Go an start looking for NH that do "Medicaid pending".
Here's my experience: My mom, mid 90's, went from IL to NH and bypassed the AL stage. She is now in a NH and on Medicaid. She was in a "tiered" facility - the kind that goes from IL to AL to NH to hospice. They are a good facility but being for-profit has an emphasis on the AL part - which is where the $$$ is made as that is all private pay - her state does not pay for AL per se. I placed her there because I didn't want to have to move her again and again (lmao), so it all seemed to be all kum-ba-ya. After a couple of years in IL, she started having closer & closer bouts of Lewy Body Dementia related hallucinations and paranoia. They were pressing me to have her move to AL- just a building away, she'll see all her friends..... She needed to make some type of move. What I found worked for my mom, was to have her seen by the medical director of another NH (he was not the medical director of the tiered facility). She saw him as just a regular patient and I told him that I was thinking NH rather than AL.Because she had "critical" medical issues like a more than 10% weight loss within 30 days, a critical H&H levels, she required "skilled" nursing care & supervision, so she was able to bypass AL and move from IL to NH. He wrote up her health history that showed skilled care needed asap. Also did a couple of other things, like changed her from the Exelon pill to the patch (more "skill" to do) and had her take a medication that needed to be compounded (again more "skill" to do). Now in less than a year, I moved my mom from the first NH as his affiliation with the medical school gerontology practice stopped and this NH#1 just had chaos in administration. She is now in another NH and back with the medical school affiliation MD's.She seems much happier and lots cleaner, although her dementia & age has finally caught up with her! Once they are on Medicaid, transferring was easy from NH to NH, well it was easy for us. My point is find a NH to move her and if it doesn't work, it's not forever.
It great that you are already through the Medicaid process. It's an exhausting pile of paperwork isn't it? For me, it was 5 months for that hurdle to clear initially and then 4 mos to deal with appeals regarding crediting for a secondary insurance deduction. Then just recently, refiling her application & documentation. But thank goodness Medicaid is available. Good luck & keep a sense of humor.
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