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I am a widowed retired nurse with diabetes, mobility issues, open wounds, alone and living in a rural setting. My late husband’s elderly friend has lived with us for a very long time. He is 93 and totally incapacitated. While home health and hospice does come to bathe him, I have to cook meals, change his diapers, check his catheter. Mild dementia has him constantly complaining and in a foul mood. I must find a sitter to go visit my own father who had the foresight to have long-term care insurance and is in independent living facility. Sitters are hard to come by so I’m lucky to get out for a couple hours a week. I’m done with a non-relative I must care for constantly. He has Medicare advantage so no facilities will take him. What do I do? My health is going downhill quickly.

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Do you want to be this man's caregiver?

Do YOU want to be living where you are - alone in a rural setting?
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Moonbeam
Look up the Area Agency on Aging in your area. Just Google that with your city, state. Ask for a social worker to get involved to get your non relative in an appropriate home. And see what services might be available for you. They will help you fill out the paperwork.
Also the home health/hospice office should have a social worker who can come by and help you fill out the application for placement. They should know all the facilities in your area that can take him.
Ask your doctor to put you on home health as well and get those wounds treated.
Let us know how it’s going. Hope you find help soon.
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First, take care of the "resident/renter" part.
Give him a 30 day notice that the space is no longer available.
Then, you have fulfilled the part required for eviction. See an attorney.
Hopefully, he will be placed elsewhere by then, but cover your bases now. It could take longer than you think if you need social workers and hospice involved.

Call APS to arrange his transfer to appropriate care. He has "Home health", indicating that is a service provided by Medi-Cal, or Medicaid.
And hospice. Medicare does pay for hospice? So call a "hospice" to come pick him up. Otherwise, APS can sign him up for Medicaid.
I think there is a misinterpretation of Medicare Advantage. Who are you getting your information from? Does he have a caseworker?

The next time he has a qualified event that requires a patient to go to the E.R., call 911 and transport. Do not allow discharge to your home.
I say this because I do not think you are required to follow "hospice rules", which seem to require you to provide care that you are not responsible for if you were a relative. He requires much more care than you are able to provide. (referencing the rule that once on hospice, do not send them to the hospital, call hospice). He is very ill, and terminal. Call 911.

You are only his landlord, not his caregiver.
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MargaretMcKen Oct 2023
Send, the more I think about this, the more I suspect it's the same case I referred to in my post above. If so, HE is the landlord.
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Sounds like you both would be better in LTC. A diabetic needs those wounds attended to. The person for that is a Woundcare Nurse to be found in a LTC facility or a Woundcare center. My friend became an amputee because of a sore on her foot and she was being cared for. You need to call in APS and tell them you can no longer care for this man, the State will need to take over his care. And you, you need to be closer to a woundcare center where you can see a Nurse who can see you often to treat these wounds. You don't fool with diabetes. APS maybe able to help u too.
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Medicare, Advantage or not, doesn't pay for long term facilty care for any elders. If this gentleman has no money, apply for Medicaid so he can be placed in a Skilled Nursing facility. Or in a hospice facility where Medicaid covers room and board along with care.

Good luck to you
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So you and your husband took in an elderly friend of your husbands, to whom you have ZERO obligation, and are letting him live with you rent free?

And this elderly gentleman has no family?

Time then to get this elderly gentleman declared a ward of the state. Discuss this with his MD or his social worker, or take him to an ER and leave him there, telling them that he cannot return to your home as he requires care and state guardianship. Let them know he isn't a relative. He will become a ward of the state.

This is a free country. NO ONE is required to take care of people who cannot care for themselves and who are not related in any way. Somehow this got out of hand at some point and was not addressed, which really is beyond my ability to understand. But then I am not certainly aware of all the cogs in this wheel.
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Anthony has “home health and hospice”, so he is on the radar for both organisations. My first step would be to discuss it with them, and ask for the best way to move his care on appropriately. As you have known him for a 'very long time', you don't want just to dump him - but let them know that it's an option you might have to take.

If by any chance Anthony actually owns the house you are living in, and there was a promise to care for him in return for you and your late husband moving in (and I remember this situation arising in a past thread), it would be useful to let us know, and probably to see a lawyer first. It may be possible to offset the value of your care against the value of the house, and/or the indeterminent nature of the 'consideration' (ie what you are providing as the value for the bargain) might mean that the agreement does not hold good as a contract. Of course you will need to know about wills etc. It would not be a good idea to start another approach, and then have all this sort of thing come out part way through, and Anthony is bound to bring it up.

Before doing either of those things, get ready a simple statement of how he came to be with you, what his income and assets are now, and whether he has ever paid you for the care. If he has paid any substantial sum in the last 5 years, the health organisations will need to know in case an option is for him (not you) to apply for Medicaid. See if you can get one or both organisations to take responsibility for the next steps. Good luck!
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