I am praying that HCR will prevent something like this from ever happening again!

[Robyn66]

My mother in law who just finished treatment for breast cancer less than a year ago, got a clean bill of health from her doctor. A few weeks later, she started having trouble walking and ended up in the hospital and was being operated on for a brain tumor,

Apparently, her doctor never ordered any of those pesky extra "unnecessary" scans and an undetected lung cancer has metastasized to her brain and kidneys. The only good thing is that as of right now, it isn't in her bones, liver, spleen, or pancreas. I am very hopeful that there is a chance of controlling this and giving her some quality time so maybe she can see her grandchildren get a bit older but if things stay in this direction I am afraid she will not last the month!

You see her first hurdle is recovering from the brain surgery. She was in a really good rehab hospital but they only let her stay for about 20 days, then she was moved to this other "rehab" facility. My husband and family went to visit her on Saturday. This place is a HELL HOLE!

They do not do physical therapy. My mother in law wanted to get up and go to the bathroom and the "nurse" said to her don't try and get out of bed you are too much dead weight. You are going to use a bed pan. In five days, she has not only lost the progress she made at the first place but she is now unable to open a package of crackers or use a TV remote herself.

She did not even acknowledge her grandchildren coming in to her room, she barely opens her eyes. She is severely depressed and is not eating-not that anyone could eat the slop they fed her.

We arrived at 4:00pm and there was a half full cup of broth on her table which had been there since 12:00pm. I don't know how much she ate. No more food arrived until 6:00pm. The food was a cheese omelet on a hamburger bun with tater tots on the side and another cup of broth and it was all ICE cold. They do not cook food there they have it sent over. My mother in law was not going to eat it but I walked down the hall anyway to ask where the microwave was to heat the food up. My sister in law has been bringing food in for her to eat and came in while I was microwaving the plate.

I asked if they had any Ensure and they didn't I wanted to go out and get some but the in-laws were afraid of making the "nursing home mad"

These are very good people but they have this "deer in the headlights" thing going on right now.

The people who work in this place do not give a shit if you eat or not, if you live or die, just as long as you are quiet. They would let my mother in law sit in her own shit if family wasn't there all the time.

When the physical therapist finaly came in on day 7, she asked my mother in law if she wanted some PT. She said NO and the PT said "ok maybe tomorrow"

I grabbed my husband aside and told him I wouldn't allow my mother to be in this place for an hour. My mother in law is very meek and would literally die before she would complain. Plus some doctor or something said to her "before you think about treatment you better find out what the prognosis is" Now that may not be exactly what was said but that is what she heard and that is what matters. NO doctors should be saying anything without a family member present. So no WONDER she is depressed she feels completely hopeless. I tried my best to make her feel better and tell her there was hope of controling the cancer but I don't know if it did any good especialy with the family being so down around her.

The family is so scared and upset that its like going in to a living wake.

The only good thing is that after I screamed for a while at everyone and at the "hospital" my sister in law looked around and found her a better place to go that hopefully she will go to Tuesday after radiation. My in laws trusted the system and didn't know what to do when it failed.

The point is, she was in a fantastic facility until her insurance told her she had to leave and her insurance is MEDICAID.

I just hope that if nothing else, this HCR bill will put the decision back in the doctor's hands where you are treated so that you aren't taken from a hospital where you are getting help and be put in a closet where you are left to die!

Thanks for listening I guess I just needed to vent for a minute!

[MNDemNY]

1. I see no reason to believe that this bill will help this at all.

[Nikki Stone1]

5. +1

.

[StarfarerBill]

2. I hope your mother-in-law can recover fully, Robyn. My best wishes to her.

[Robyn66]

3. Thank you!

I'm just so frustrated I appreciate you guys listening! I want to see her get the care she needs not the care that fits into some stupid time line!

[StarfarerBill]

6. I have serious doubts that HCR legislation will help her, but I hope she recovers long before that,

anyway.

Again, the best of luck to her and your whole family. :)

[Walk away]

4. I know that Medicaid is supposed to be expanded but I don't...

think HCR will change the way Medicaid patients are treated. And you can believe me, people who pay for health care insurance get treated the same way.

[laughingliberal]

7. A typical nightmare in our current system and not likely to be affected by the HCR bill

Unfortunately, we are leaving some of the worst parts in place. I don't expect to see any expansion of payments for rehab from Medicare which could have allowed her to stay in the good rehab facility. Medicaid reimbursement is abysmal in most states and facilities which rely, mostly, on them for payment are on very thin margins, incredibly understaffed and, generally, waiting long periods of time for payment owed to them. The regulation of facilities is under state control. Call the ombudsman with your concerns. There should be a posting somewhere in the facility which lists the number.

[ipaint]

8. Some stats I just posted in another thread on medicaid.

What has received less attention is the potential impact of the major Medicaid expansion proposed in the House and Senate reform bills. By requiring states to cover everyone (not just children and mothers) in households earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level, it is estimated, the legislation would add about 15 million new people to the Medicaid rolls. That doesn’t even begin to equal the need: two-thirds of the uninsured are poor or near-poor, and the House and Senate bills would leave 18 million and 24 million people, respectively, without coverage by 2019. But even if we raise the number of people on Medicaid from 35 million to 50 million, will there be enough physicians willing to see them?

By one estimate, state Medicaid programs pay, on average, only 60 percent as much as private insurance does. As a result, many physicians will not see Medicaid patients. A recent study found that 28 percent of physicians don’t accept Medicaid patients, and 19 percent accept some. Only 40 percent will take anybody on Medicaid.

Primary-care physicians have an even more dismal track record. Forty percent of general internists, 35 percent of family physicians and GPs, 18 percent of pediatricians, and 28 percent of ob/gyns do not accept any Medicaid patients. Thirty-one percent of internists and FP/GPs take all Medicaid patients, 42 percent of pediatricians do, and 34 percent of ob/gyns do.

http://m.industry.bnet.com/healthcare/10001447/medicaid-expansion-may-fail-because-of-doctors-refusal-to-see-patients/

I'm so sorry for what your family is going through.

We are about to throw 15-20 million more people into a system that is totally inadequate and completely unprepared.

[Hello_Kitty]

9. Gosh I'm so sorry about that! Hope the situation improves for your MIL.

One important point your OP raises is that HCR ought to be about the CARE and not just the insurance. When people see that the overall quality of the care and the experience getting the care has not changed and has maybe even gotten worse, they're going to be furious and they're going to (rightly) think this "reform" was a sham.