Shortly after mom's diagnosis in December, her GP Dr Beyeler; her bone doctor that put her ankle back together, Dr. Gardner; and her oncologist, Dr Lawson met and agreed to let Dr Lawson take the lead in her ongoing treatment and put her under the care of Hospice. Hospice is under Medicare and is designed to provide additional services at the end of life that enhance the quality of life and provide support to family and caregivers. Not the least of these services is handling the pain and symptom management medications.
Unfortunately, just days after setting this up there was a tragic house fire in Wasilla during a wind storm that took the life of the executive of Hospice. That left Hospice without the Federally required master's level oversight. That put mom under another program called Homecare which (though the same caregivers were involved) was much more limited in its ability to handle prescriptions. In the last two weeks Hospice scrambled, interviewed and accepted another qualified Director. She had to give notice to terminate her job in Anchorage and has now, once again, made Hospice a qualified agency. Using his power of attorney this morning, Ray signed mom back over to Hospice and we all look forward to a centralized coordination and distribution of needed medications. Up to this point it has been a three ringed circus involving two doctors and the pharmacy. Because of the abuse of pain meds and their high street value the prescriptions can't be faxed to the pharmacy- they must be picked up in person from the Doctor. Because of the higher than normal doses prescribed the pharmacy won't fill some of the prescriptions. We're told that the role of Hospice will eliminate these conflicts and the need to hand carry prescriptions. We'll see.
Mom says her pain levels are OK but she has only been about half here today. We retire tonight under the eminent threat of volcano Redoubt blowing up and advice to shut down computers so volcanic ash won't be sucked into the cooling systems.
Hi
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that some assistance with the pain meds may be on it's way. The last thing you need now is a volcano!!Thanks so much for keeping us up to date. This is SO important to our family. We love to hear Maxine's voice during phone calls but understand there may be day's that isn't possible. We are praying and thinking of all of you Maxine is a great example of a Christian getting ready to go home to glory Love Frances and Janet Kerns