Family Caregiving, Part 2: Healthcare Concerns with Daphne Davis

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

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Get to know our helpful bees in the greater puget sound area or many cities across the US by giving us a buzz at two thousand and six, six to seven, zero nine five seven, or visit be organizedcom. That’s be ee organizedcom. The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements, LLLC and answers for elders radio, and welcome back to everyone who answers for ours radio with the Wonderful Daphne Davis from Pinnacle, from your place, and Daphne and I have spent the first quarter of an hour talking about, you know, what is a job description if you were to advocate for a loved one and what if all this stuff mean and adept me. Welcome back. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for the words of wisdom. I tell you, the last segment that we had it really surprised me at how young people are to step into this role. You know, I was fifty five really when I started taking care of my mom. Are went now? I was about fifty. Yeah, I’ve wet fifty. No, four hundred and fifty two. Really did one hundred and fifty two. So I was early s if she died when I was fifty five. So you know, and I look at yes, I was around when she was in assisted living to start, where she was a little more independent, but I didn’t understand all the complexities and I remember that day when going to the hospital, when she first that’s kind of my first exposure was the hospital and something’s happened sadly, and you’re put on a situation where now all of a sudden you’re met with all this term and this terminology. I will never forget showing up at the hospital, and I’ve told the story million times on the air, but the trias person would as I was here, saying I’m normal perkins daughter, and they would say are you poa? And I look to her like what is POA? And I was in, you know, late forties or in a these at that point. So tell us a little bit about what goes on in the hospital and you know, what are people dealing with right now. So let’s talk about a PLA. First of all, it’s it stands for power of attorney and there’s lots of different names and Jardan and ramifications for four different kinds of power of attorneys and people throw around different phrases. But when you get to the hospital, you’re going to you’re going to hear, first of all, power of attorney from medicals, and what that means is is that if this person in the hospital is not able to advocate for themselves on anything dealing with their medical life, anything health oriented, who is the person who’s going to make decisions or advocate for that patient? And many, many, many many people do not have this taken care of. As that’s my in my world, letting way and I just work with everybody across the spectrum of people. So it’s not unique to a socio economic status, is not unique to whirl or city people. It’s everybody. You need to have a power of a dirty four medical and then second be like you know, even in your S it’s not a bad idea to have them know that document drafted up. You don’t know what could happen. You do not, and it’s certainly could change over time. But you know, I think that’s this is an important thing that even people my age, there’s I’m it. I’m sixty five. A lot of my I mean I even think now my husband and I have something in our will, you know, or in art and and we do have powers of attorney in those documents. But you know, if you’re if you’re married, there is a hierarchy of how power of attorney goes and so you are naturally a power of attorney and I’m not in turning. So that is right. Attorney words that kind of naturally fall into a power attorney for each other. But I have recently had, just this week, a niece helping her uncle and she doesn’t have power of attorney and they nurses, social workers, doctors could not give any information to her. So common sense, you know, jumped in a little bit at a time. I got involved and said this is what we need to do, but I had to teach her that, the niece, about what to even ask for and to do it quickly, because there was some concern that her uncle wouldn’t keep his cognition and be able to sign documentation that he wishes to have his niece the power of attorney right. And if that happens, then you have to go into a guardianship type program and that involves courts sometimes and judges and somebody you know either a signing of power of attorney or you know, family members get together and know that this is the logical person and the court will honor that. But it’s it is difficult when you don’t have these paperwork things taken care of before the crisis right. So now with this particular family, doctors are having to get involved and determine if her uncle is competent to be able to sign the documents. And sometimes he is and sometimes he’s not. Sometimes he’s right with us and he makes logical, total sense and could make it a clear decision, and other times he cannot. And so just let me paint this picture a little bit. This you know, mid thirty year old woman has a full time job, she’s taking care of her son who’s elementary school age, and she’s trying to figure out how do I get to a hospital? Social workers are saying she’s not easy to get a hold of. Does the niece is feeling so so responsible because she’s not available till after six in the evening. I mean it’s a nightmare. And so then we had come in and I’m helping her and getting facts as sent to my number. We’re doing what we have to do, but the point is, try not to be in that situation. Try Proactive. Now at the hospital they’ll have a form for medical power of attorney and that can easily be signed with witness or notary to be taken care of it at the hospital. Financial Power of attorney is a different cup of tea and we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But the medical is really important and so that you can even know what is going on. Which is have one? What medications are they on? Is he ready to discharge? What kind of discharge does he need? All kinds of things come into play right now with this particular story. They’ll take a stay with we’re trying to figure out when she can go and look at either assisted living or adult family homes. Because of her new job of three weeks, she doesn’t feel comfortable leaving during the day. So us at Pinnacle will be flexible. We’re saying, let’s make Saturday work. We’re also hoping that he can stay at the hospital, that he has medical need to be at the hospital to satisfy medical insurance. So it gets very complicated in terms of all the little details. What would he do if she didn’t have you? She has already said to me I don’t know what I do without you, definitely, and and that’s it’s like you do do we realize? You know what I think about the days when I was taking care of my mom. I didn’t have adophnee, I had a you know, I have was flanned by the seat of my pants and I will never forget. You know, just being thrust into this role nobody aspires to be. I’m going to be a family caregiver. Something right, but you’re thrust into this role and all these terms are thrown at you. You’re in a scenario where you really don’t know what the resources are. You don’t understand how insurance works, you don’t understand how Medicare works, you don’t understand how supplemental insurance works. What’s the difference between Part A, part V, part see, Part D of Medicare? All the different aspects that navigating healthcare happens and it’s really there’s no there’s no advanced training. Your throne in the deep end, especially since so many families wait till there’s a crisis and then all of a sudden they have to figure it all out. All of those things come to fruition front and center and people go what I had no idea, and even the ability to be able to switch medical insurances. People don’t know, for under Medicare, that there’s a step, which is a special enrollment perioded you don’t have to always wait. Their different criteria to qualify for a step. People still don’t know about what it needs to be either under observation or admitted. These are all things that fall under that medical power of attorney and you get this jargon thrown at you. The other piece that I want to talk about, who is finding somebody that can help you, who will meet you and your journey. So this story that I’m telling you about, we had to meet at seven o’clock at night at the hospital because that’s when she was available. Do I do that all the time? No, no, I don’t, but I do do it when it’s necessary, when I know that families are in a crunch. Yeah, this is called life and nobody’s story is the same. Nobody’s story Fronto a nice little cookie cutter, and so we met in the evening. When you’re looking for an advisor, I really encourage you to find somebody that understands this is your journey, your unique story, and that they find out things about your unique story. It’s particular gentleman has some anxiety issues and he gets startled and scared very easily, and so the niece knew this about her uncle and I was like, okay, I promise I’ll be gentle she was very protective of him and by the time that I left she was like, I don’t know what I was worried about. You know what you’re doing. So make sure. I mean she didn’t have to choose to work with me and we were just meeting and whatnot that but make sure that you feel comfortable with that person that you’re choosing to work with and that they can guide you. Another sentence that I say a lot of times as I’m not a decision maker. I am just an information post. I’m just a place of information and and never and my decision maker. I just sometimes I’m a translator between medical or legal or financial recurgan to the lay person as well, but generally it’s just information. When when you are in that hospital situation, and one of the things that I want to to let General People know, are consumers know, is that there has to always be a safe discharge and it can be very frightening and you know, a lot of pressure, and I’m not taking anything away from a hospital settings or medical care setting, but you, as the consumer and at the advocate for your loved one, have the right to say I need a safe discharge. This I don’t have a safe discharge, and it’s really helpful when you have somebody working alongside you, because then they know that you are going to make forward progress. When you’re ambling self, they get a little bit nervous well, and there’s so many cross roads. You know when you’re when you’re dealing with this, and I think one of the things that we’re spending this hour to all of our listeners here is when you hit that crossroads, what happens? How do you navigate? And the other thing is what’s really involved in this process. It’s not just like you show up at a hospital and you’re done. People, I don’t think, actually realize the time that it takes. Just like what you were talking about, showing up at seven o’clock and being afraid to leave from work. Sometimes people think that’s no big deal, but you’re talking about could be a whole day from work that you’re missing out on pay, and it’s she’s a single mom taking care of a child. That’s huge. It is. So anyway, definitely, before we get to our next segment, how do we reach you? You reached me at our phone number, which is eight hundred and fifty five. That and three, four, one thousand five hundred. There’s eight fifty, five, seven, three, four hundred and fifteen hundred, or at Pinnacle Senior Placementscom and everyone. Daphne will be back with us to talk about the financial and the legal aspects. Coming up next. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. To contact pinnacles senior placements, go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom.