The Medicaid Shuffle Part 2

12/3/2020

Like I say at the end, "I ain't going back!"

The journey timeline goes as:

2002 Dec 16 Downieville, CA, clinic (stopped breathing)

2002 Dec 16 Grass Valley, hospital (not admitted n put on helicopter) 

2002 Dec-2003 Jan Sutter Roseville, CA, hospital, trauma center initial surgery

2002 Jan-2003 Fall Santa Clara, CA, hospital

2003 Northridge, CA, nursing home

2004 La Mirada, CA nursing home, not licensed

2004 back to hospital at Easter break with pneumonia, Santa Clara, CA

2004 (Spring-Summer) San Leandro (near Oakland), sub-acute hospital

2004 Summer unamed hospital in San Leandro/ Oakland area

SHTF

2004 Aug Stanford Medical Center, brain surgery

2004-2006 Mountain View, CA, hospital

2006 Merced, CA rental house

2006 - present Merced, CA, house next to family

Part 1 is at  http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-medicaid-shuffle.html. I wrote it a while ago.

Now I live in my own home. I got back custody of my kids and finished raising them. I sometimes talk on the phone and I pay my bills. I can mostly dress myself and depend on someone to hook up my feeding tube, place me in a wheel chair, and do routine household chores. I'm still unconscious and the state retains the right to place me in a nursing home.  http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-medicaid-shuffle.html

I speak well enough to ask for a court order before that happens. Umm...I speak. People will be doing a double-take. I was placed in hospital care and forgotten about. I left the hospital and have been hiding out in my own home since 2006.

A big reason for leaving is what I call the "Medicaid Shuffle." When my after-stroke ordeal started, I had already been in two hospitals, the trauma center where I had the first surgery, and the rehab hospital. The trauma center records are the ones that can be interpreted as saying I am brain dead. I've read them, though, and they don't use that specific term. It does have a medical term that can mean that in some circles. I looked brain dead at that time, and that's probably how they were interpreted.

Eventually the private insurance ran out. The hospital I was at moved me to a Medicaid bed. (The bed was actually called that!) I waited in that bed until I was moved out of that hospital. Initially I was sent to a care home that wasn't near family. That place sent me to another home a few months later. I was at the second home a few months and then ended up back in the hospital I started in. I call this moving the "Medicaid Shuffle."  http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-medicaid-shuffle.html

That's how the "shuffle" started. That's three placements right there.

I had pneumonia. The hospital that sent me to that nursing home fixed me up again and sent me to a long-term sub-acute hospital near Oakland (like across the street). I could look to the end of the block, and across the street was Oakland.

I ended up in another hospital a few weeks later with pneumonia and dehydration. I had to give a taped interview to a state investigator.

I don't count Stanford in the Medicaid Shuffle, but it was part of my journey.

July-Aug 2004 Surgery(s) at Stanford University Hospital. I stayed there a few days, but this is omitted from records because it's not government. They removed the AVM in my head that was to kill me. With this gone, of course I'm alive. The government omits it, so now it's a miracle that I'm still alive.  http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2016/11/dates.html

While having a procedure at Stanford, I was moved. The last hospital I went to was for over a year. When the unit I was in was closing, I didn't want to move yet again. I contacted a family member. I'm now in private residence. That original family member hasn't provided care since 2006. I rely on a local program and a daughter who is now 'old enough.' My father and nephew are next door if needed.

That was the "Medicaid Shuffle." I wanted to change their slogan to, "If the condition doesn't kill you, we'll move you around and make you die."

I AIN'T GOING BACK!