Just a thought.

[alissagail]

What is the name of your state? Texas

My Mom was rushed to the hospital this past February, she was placed in ICU. She had to have emergency gastric by-pass surgery due to a crimped artery. During her time in ICU she developed a Staph infection. And for some un-known reason, her wound would not heal. I guess I should state that my Mother was on SSI, SSD and medicaid. Due to her wound vac, she was in the hospital in ICU for a period of time. However, Social Security will only pay for so many days in the hospital, so they transfered her to a long care facility where she again got another staph infection and almost died of what I found out later was a drug overdose. Her wound is still not healing and the number of days came and Social Security would no longer pay for this facility. We finally found a nursing home/rehab center that would take my mom with her wound vac and she was placed there. Then again...the time came and Social Security would no longer pay for this place either and the facility did not have any medicade beds available. By now we are in to August. My Mom still has the wound vac. No other facility would take my mom with this wound vac, so the doctor said that as long as the wound is kept clean, all will be ok. My Mom was then released to join her husband (my stepdad) in the facility that his sons had placed him in during the time that my Mom was in the hospital. She was doing really well when she was released and again when I saw her Labor Day weekend. A week later, I get a call that she was rushed to the hospital with a Urinary trac infection. That was on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, the hospital called me again telling me how serious my Mothers condition was. I rushed to the hospital and she was in a coma. She died that night of Sepsis. Would you consider this a wrongful death? And who would be at fault if it were? Just wondering.

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state? Texas

My Mom was rushed to the hospital this past February, she was placed in ICU. She had to have emergency gastric by-pass surgery due to a crimped artery. During her time in ICU she developed a Staph infection. And for some un-known reason, her wound would not heal. I guess I should state that my Mother was on SSI, SSD and medicaid. Due to her wound vac, she was in the hospital in ICU for a period of time. However, Social Security will only pay for so many days in the hospital, so they transfered her to a long care facility where she again got another staph infection and almost died of what I found out later was a drug overdose. Her wound is still not healing and the number of days came and Social Security would no longer pay for this facility. We finally found a nursing home/rehab center that would take my mom with her wound vac and she was placed there. Then again...the time came and Social Security would no longer pay for this place either and the facility did not have any medicade beds available. By now we are in to August. My Mom still has the wound vac. No other facility would take my mom with this wound vac, so the doctor said that as long as the wound is kept clean, all will be ok. My Mom was then released to join her husband (my stepdad) in the facility that his sons had placed him in during the time that my Mom was in the hospital. She was doing really well when she was released and again when I saw her Labor Day weekend. A week later, I get a call that she was rushed to the hospital with a Urinary trac infection. That was on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, the hospital called me again telling me how serious my Mothers condition was. I rushed to the hospital and she was in a coma. She died that night of Sepsis. Would you consider this a wrongful death? And who would be at fault if it were? Just wondering.

**A: sorry for your loss. It is hard to do a diagnosis and evaluation without all the facts.
Consult a med-mal attorney right away.

 

[alissagail]

I guess my real frusteration is ...how can medicare really limit how much time a person needs to heal? I don't understand why my mom had to be moved around so much. Why couldn't they keep her where she was until she was healed?

 

[ecmst12]

Medicare doesn't limit the time it takes anyone to heal. It only limits how much they will pay for. Medicaid should have picked up after Medicare was exhausted. Now if they were saying the hospital was not medically necessary, and the doctors said that was not correct, you could have appealed the decision.

 

[alissagail]

Medicare doesn't limit the time it takes anyone to heal. It only limits how much they will pay for. Medicaid should have picked up after Medicare was exhausted. Now if they were saying the hospital was not medically necessary, and the doctors said that was not correct, you could have appealed the decision.

I did appeal the decision. Medicare would no longer pay for the facility that she was in and they didn't have any medicaid beds. That being the only facility that would take her with the wound vac, I was left believing that I had no other choice. I guess I really should let it go. There is nothing that i can do to bring her back. I really don't want anything but answers. And maybe to help this from happening to anyone else in my situation.

 

[ecmst12]

You didn't post a lot of details like what her diagnoses were prior to the chain of events described. But it sounds like she was pretty weak and very prone to infection to begin with, and also had poor circulation or some other problem which inhibited healing. Once the initial wound/infection happened, it would have been very difficult for her to recover from that even in the best of circumstances.