My state has a web page advising where/how to apply for the MFP Waiver Program (a Transitioning of people like my mom out of a skilled nursing facility and back to a residence in our community. "MFP" stands for Money Follows the Person [or Patient] ).
We have selected the caregiver we want Mom to live with, and Medicaid/Medicare stand to save a LOT of taxpayer money by facilitating this move.
Are the social workers in this field simply spread too thin nowadays?
Is there any kind of "workaround" l might employ, so as to go straight to Medicaid to apply?
It's worth noting that, due to the pandemic, the nursing facility is going into lockdowns on a frequent basis. My mom, a Memory Care patient, is being left alone in her room for hours at a time, day after day, with no social contact and no visits from family or friends. Seeing what that does to her, I feel that prioritizing virus control to the exclusion of a person's mental/emotional well-being is cruel in the extreme; unsophisticated; even criminal.
A word of advice to those who may be considering placement of a debilitated parent in a skilled nursing facility: DON'T DO IT -- not as long as COVID-19 continues to disrupt our society. Just find another way. As things now stand, my dear mother - and we her family - are trapped in a situation almost beyond remedy.
They often are limited and many have waiting lists.
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/long-term-services-supports/money-follows-person/index.html
I agree that not considering the highly negative effect this isolation from loved ones has on a patient is cruel and criminal.
For these reasons, I will opt for in home care for as long as that is feasible. When/if mom's condition gets to be too much for living at home at all, I hope that covid will be a memory or just a "normal" part of our lives and that places will stop being so ridiculously strict.
Good luck with getting your mom moved ASAP.