Struggle to get on Medicaid (father, money, power of attorney, assisted)

[YtownGuy]

I am not sure if I am posting this on the right forum, so please move it to where it belongs if necessary.

My mother has had dementia since at least 2004. Since my father died in 2009, my brother and I have been paying for her nursing home care with the proceeds of an annuity. The money has run out.

I have applied for Medicaid to cover her nursing home care. I have submitted all of the paperwork they have asked for. The deadline has come and gone, and I have been given a ten-day extension. I am still waiting for a statement about my mother's pension that was provided by an insurance company.

I overnighted the necessary papers to them, and I see that they arrived on April 24. I am still waiting for the statement. I'm absolutely frightened that this one crucial piece of paperwork won't arrive in time. What should I do?

[LQQKOUT]

There is no way they could have expeditied the request?

[texdav]

Bascially you said it yourself;you are waiting on a statement from insurance company on pension.Perhaps callt eh insurance company on the pension paperwork?

[old_cold]

Was the home involved in helping with the paperwork?
If not, are they aware you have done so?
When this happened with my mom, there seemed to be no problem with them to wait until everything went through.
They were well aware it was going to happen and handled all the paperwork at the appropriate time....I didn't have to.

If I remember correctly, she was about 3 months in arrears by the time everything was approved and in place.
I got bills during that time but the administration told me not to worry about it, it was simply accounting procedure and the back payments were made when all was done.

[YtownGuy]

I called the insurance company early yesterday morning. It turns out their legal department had some issues with my power of attorney form. The problem was that I became power of attorney after my father died.

By late in the afternoon, they had not called back. I called and spoke to the customer service representative I had spoken to earlier that day. I asked if it would help if I sent them a certified copy of my father's death certificate. I immediately went to the post office and sent it via Express Mail.

I also suggested that they fax me a copy of the pension statement so that I could get it to Medicaid as soon as possible.

The nursing home did give me Medicaid paperwork and someone from the nursing home came to the Medicaid hearing. They have also badgered me about the paperwork, and they did help me get the extension.

[YtownGuy]

Yesterday I got mail from the insurance agency telling me what the service representative told me on the phone the day before. Was it really necessary to wait a week to tell me that, especially when Medicaid has set a deadline?

Is this normal behavior for an insurance company, or am I just dealing with a particularly arbitrary and unreasonable group of people?

[ocnjgirl]

I do think insurance companies are particularly difficult in this regard. I had no problem taking over my Mom's banking, social security, medicare stuff with my POA, but have had a terrible time just trying to get her life insurance company to change her billing address so I'll get the bills (she moved out of her home and into assisted living over a year ago and her mail forwarding has expired). I sent them the power of attorney and they told me they couldn't go by it because it doesn't specifically state it includes insurance policies...they think I should pay to get another POA that includes a statement about insurance policies, which we are not going to do.

[YtownGuy]

I have some good news. I have been in frequent contact with people at the insurance company, and I got a fax of the paper I need and I dropped it off at the Medicaid office a little while ago. Now let's cross our fingers and hope all that I need really is all I need for Medicaid.

[Briolat21]

My fingers are very much crossed for you!!!