What are the steps taken when a parent dies in a nursing home?

Usually part of the Medicaid application process requires that all arrangements are made and prepaid for prior to Medicaid eligibility. At least with my mother that is how it is and was for any other friends or family that qualified for Medicaid. In my mother's case she went to the funeral home of her choice at the time of my father's death and made all of her funeral arrangements even choosing her own casket and paid for it all with money from Dad's life insurance. So when the time comes all I need to do is call or have the nursing home call the funeral home to come get her. Only arrangement left is putting the date on her head stone. Possibly all this has been prearranged prior to her receiving Medicaid and you just need to find out from them what and who the arrangements are with. My Moms is in an irrevocable trust with the funeral home so any interest earned on the prepaid funds are used to cover the increased costs that have occurred since the arrangements were made. Some of the things she arranged and paid for I wouldn't have had but it is her choice.

Do what I did because I was in the same boat. Start the process right now and do a whole body donation and call the company, I did this the day my mother was dying and it took away my attention from her, it’s just much better to have this done and ready ahead of time. I ensured mine was a good company, I live in Florida so I looked at the website of the Anatomical Board of the State of Florida who governs whole body donations, but I used them to pick my source going on their website. I am using Science Care for me when I die, which will be a while, I am 54, but for my mother I used Medcure. You pay absolutely nothing. It’s about a 30 minute phone call because they get background information on your mother’s health and what kind of work she did for a living etc. - - those kinds of questions. You also want to use Hospice, as in the last days they will make your mother very comfortable with Morphine. In a nursing home, Hospice can come in there, I don’t know how often they will administer morphine, but in the dying stages, morphine is the ONLY thing that will keep her comfortable. I’ve read many many things and did alot of research when my mother was dying and what the whole dying process - what happens. Taking your mother to a good hospice place is the best place, here in Florida I used Avow, it’s a beautiful atmosphere, they play soothing music, they take care of them better than at the nursing home. But don’t let her die in the nursing home. Medicare pays hospice 100% as long as she continues to go downhill. If you do the whole body donation, everything is handled for you, as hospice will call Science Care or Medcur when your mother dies, a funeral home immediately comes to get the body and everything is handled from there, being that Science Care will come get the body from the funeral home - you do not go with to the funeral home when your mother dies, at least I don’t think so, my mother died 11pm. Whole body donation will cremate your mother for free and send her back home to you in an urn, or they will put her in a ossuary or disperse her at sea or a reasonable facsimile thereof - whatever choice you pick. You will get 1 free death certificate. She will be eligible for this program if she has no contagious diseases such as the top 5 I believe it was. But for someone with little income and my mother already signed off on this anyway 6 months before, this was an ideal choice as I always wanted to do this when I died as well. But start this process now. Can she sign her signature? If she can I can give you a form for her to sign, I don’t think it is needed actually, but I liked it because my mother actually signed off and was in agreement with all this. But with my situation being my mother’s friends are all dead anyway and to ship my mother back to her family in Canada was just too much money and I could not afford a funeral anyway, I am very pleased with what I did. My boss actually said he is going to do this as well - he didn’t know about whole body donation. Science Care’s # 1-800-417-3747. Everyone on here is saying it takes 2 yrs to get the body back, this is strange because it says on my forms it takes 6-12 weeks and a phone call to them confirmed this, maybe Florida is different? I called and right now my mother is being cremated and getting her ready to send to me. She died 3/2/19. https://anatbd.acb.med.ufl.edu/tribute/

One thing you may not know, if mom would go to hospital with serious illness, hospital keep NH aprised of her condition, if chance for it to be fatal, NH will start discharge procedures.

Hangingon: What had mom specified that she wanted when she was of lucid mind? Certainly she must have told you her wishes, right?

Social services will take care if cremation. Just have the nursing home call a local funeral home. If the first one says no call the next. I'm sorry for your loss.

Just a quick response to worriedinCali. My Mom had made all her arrangements prior to ever being in the position of needing Medicaid. I was just told by her caseworker that we would need to have all those arrangements made and paid for prior to her being eligible and was very happy to know that it had already been arranged. The reason she gave is because the state (NY) doesn't want to be stuck with the costs of a funeral. I really don't know how they "make" someone accomplish this if at the time of applying they haven't already done so and don't have the funds to cover it. They ignore the amount of money put into the burial trust and don't count it toward assets. Back years ago when my aunt died they buried her in Potters Field in an unmarked grave and the state did cover the cost.

Hangingon61 ... By now, you have read many, if not all, of the suggestions. They are good ones (though we seem to have one unhelpful troll in this thread...just ignore that one).

When my mom died from Alzheimer's, I was the only one with her in the nursing home room. It was very hard one me. But, I can't tell you how relieved I was that I had gotten both her and me signed up for cremation years (decades) ago with the Cremation Society of Pennsylvania. I was in the room with my mom laying dead in her bed, and I was numbly packing up her belongings. I took a break to take some boxes down to my car. When I came back, the Society workers had arrived while I was gone and had already removed her. They are very professional at what they do, as they do this type of work every day of every week. See if there is a Cremation Society in your state and if they can help with the costs in any way.

But, like you say, you do not have much money. I can actually feel your stress, and I'm sorry you are going through this.

However, armed with FACTS (only) you can make good decisions. So, as many as these wonderful people on here have said, start with the Nursing Home (NH), and see if an administrator at the NH or even a doctor or higher-level nurse (e.g., RN) would have some advice for you. Most of these people have seen it all. Just be up front and honest with them. Don't just ask them in the hallway, ask them if you could speak with them in private for just a few minutes for their advice.

Simply move forward with coming up with a solution. You do not want to be at your mom's death bed and having to deal with this. Don't be afraid. Simply get the facts and take action. I know of a friend with a similar situation who put together a GoFundMe page. If things get desperate for you, you can even try that. If you go that way, private message me on here, and I will donate some.

Just believe that you can take care of this. I know you can. Believe in yourself! Everything will be fine.

Hanging: Thank you for responding to my post. I'm sorry that you don't have the funds. Everything does escalate in price.