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My MIL is currently in a nursing home with Medicaid pending. Someone, I'm not even sure who (we're dealing with so many people -- social workers, caseworkers, hospital people, nursing home people), suggested having her apply for hospice on the grounds that Medicare would then pay hospice bills, and they are more prompt and reliable about payment than Medicaid. My husband was at a meeting about this yesterday, and they wanted him to sign something saying he would pay if Medicare didn't. He refused, so I guess she won't get hospice. Probably doesn't really matter. She is already on palliative care.


It isn't that we aren't willing to help MIL financially. We have been doing that for years. It's just that this sounds like asking us to write a blank check. Medical costs can be very high, and if Medicare refuses to pay after charges have been made, it seems like we could lose everything we have if DH were to sign what they wanted him to.


Does anyone know if this is standard procedure for hospice?

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NEVER sign anything that puts you in a position of accepting her debt as your responsibility, if he must sign he should do it as Mr Dogperson as POA for xxxx, (or whatever the accepted POA signature is in your area)
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Dogperson, I found this on the Medicare website about Hospice care: medicare.gov/coverage/hospice-and-respite-care.html

In a nut shell, Hospice does not bill you for the care they give. Note that Hospice does not pay for room and board in a facility, it is up to Mother-in-law to pay, be it self-pay or by way of Medicaid. I have a feeling that is where the mix-up begins.

Both my parents had Hospice. Both were in different facilities at different times. Never got a bill from Hospice. Now, my parents had to pay the facilities the room/board and routine care.
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I'm sure it was not hospice that stipulated the payment arrangement. Hospice is paid by Medicare, not Medicaid, so whether Medicaid was approved or not would not matter to the Hospice program. And once hospice is approved, Medicare pays.

Hospice does not cover room and board, so if Medicaid is turned down, it is the nursing home that will lose out.

I wouldn't waste time investigating other hospice organizations. This is not a hospice rule.

You can't blame the NH for wanting to get paid, no matter what, but you sure don't have to sign up to be the ones that pay them.
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I would check with different hospice organizations. Our hospice never requested such a promise.
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I would report this hospice organization to your Attorney General
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This is purely a guess. Hospice eligibility is based on health. In this case there was a proposal that it be applied for based on financial considerations. In that case there was no guarantee that MIL would be eligible once hospice had a chance to do their review process. And they wouldn't want to start their care until that was complete -- unless someone promised to pay them if the request wasn't approved.

Could that be it?

Seems like the solution would be to apply for hospice. If it gets approved, start hospice. Nobody should have to sign any financial promises.
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It may have been a health issue. We aren't sure whether she would qualify for hospice. I think maybe heart problems are harder to predict. My mother died about three years ago. She was on hospice, but she had cancer. Her doctor could predict with a high degree of confidence that she had less than six months.

I'm not really too worried about MIL getting hospice. She is in a clean, safe place where she is getting good care and is physically comfortable. Mentally, not so much. She is demanding to go home and just gets madder when DH tries to explain why we think that would be a bad idea.

Thanks again, everybody on the forum. The advice I have gotten here has been a lot of help. I'm really glad I found this site.
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That's what we figured, although we've already had to pay some of her care expenses. She had some very bad teeth that needed to be removed. (Very long story. She hates going to the dentist, was having bad jaw pain, went to two doctors seeking treatment, both told her go to a dentist, she wouldn't go.) Since it's a dental issue, Medicare, Medicaid, and her medigap policy wouldn't help. She didn't have anywhere near enough money, so we figured we'd pay most of it if we could just get her to go. (She hasn't been declared mentally incompetent, and I don't think she would be considered mentally incompetent, so there's no forcing her to go if she wouldn't.) We finally got her to the oral surgeon who was going to remove the bad teeth, but it wound up being a lot more expensive than we had expected. Turned out she had a broken jaw that hadn't shown up on x-rays. Oral surgeon hadn't realized until he had her sedated. He said part of the jawbone had dissolved, almost certainly as a result of an infected tooth root. It was going to cost a lot more than just removing teeth. It's still a dental procedure, so no help from Medicare, Medicaid, or the medigap policy. DH had the choice of either paying up front the whole cost of the procedure or waiting for his mother to come out of the sedation and taking her back to the nursing home with an untreated broken jaw. Luckily he had a credit card.
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Thanks, Grammyteacher. We'll look at the possibility of a different hospice organization. These folks are all heart {insert sarcasm icon}.
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No, this was hospice, and it was Medicare, not Medicaid, they were concerned might refuse to pay. The nursing home has not asked us to guarantee payment. They took her Medicaid-pending, with no requirement for us to sign, and she has been there for several weeks now. It was only when hospice was suggested and there was a meeting to discuss it that anyone wanted DH to sign anything. Meeting broke up real fast when he refused.
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