I am learning …

Pardon me for sounding so very jaded but I think I have learned a lesson and perhaps I have learned it from my mother: don’t trust.

I have always been the “trusting kind” and perhaps it is despite my mother’s very suspicious nature, however, she might have something there.

From my last post: “Back to worry and desperation: I called the Entitlement Department again and was told they were ‘here for me.’ But, as much as they were here for me, the papers weren’t there for them-thar folks at the other agency. ”

During the blizzard, when I had spoken to the lady at the Entitlement Department of the Managed Long Term Care Agency, I received platitudes. I was led to believe that this company would fight for me, would be there to straighten out any issue. I bought it, but my mind kept floating back to previous times that this woman failed me. I don’t know if I should have been riding her, calling her every minute, reminding her or even demanding. I assumed that she would fulfill her oral obligations and by assuming, I screwed myself several times and ended up in a furious flurry at the last minute to straighten things out myself; this is not my style.

By yesterday, post-storm, I still had not received any communication from this woman who I will call “C.” I sent another email asking for her to get back to me with advice. Nothing. I started to fall into non-function mode and went back to bed mid-morning, and awakened with on of my (chronic) ocular migraines and an epiphany … that maybe my mother was correct: you really can’t trust anyone, and taking this premise one step further into the land of extrapolation, the only person you can count on is yourself. I woke up recharged and headed back to the computer and began organizing, sorting, copying, collating and planning. I realized that if I relied on C. again, I would be in trouble. I wouldn’t make the “new” deferred date of March 11 and I couldn’t risk dealing with an organization, Medicaid, that was not only sub-par but disorganized and careless. As it stood, they were asking for papers they had already received many times. They misspelled my mother’s name, used a return address stamp that was worn out and partly illegible. If they didn’t give a crap, why should I?

Because my mother is dependent on the services of an aide, 11 hours/day and unless this gets straightened out the issue gets more and more toxic.

So I packed a large envelope with every form I could find that seemed pertinent, having gone though four crates of my mother’s paperwork from the year of the flood. I wrote a cover letter informing this government organization via a supervisor, that not only did they spell my mother’s name wrong and stamp every form with a an old, defective stamp yielding part of a return address, but I informed them that these papers were sent in in November and I am sick of this nonsense happening every year. Furthermore, I let them know that I am the one who does all the paperwork and that I do not live with my mother, nor do I pick up her mail daily. And that they better send all communications to me.

And with that, about 20 pages with color coded post-its were sent off certified, return-receipt, so no one can say they didn’t receive anything. I have learned.

I faxed a couple of pages needed to my mother’s doctor and then called the office paperwork lady to cover myself. You would think that a fax addressed to the doctor with a form to complete would be put in the doctor’s file to await his return. It seems that whenever I call this woman I have to wind her up and tell her what to do. “Oh, so I’ll put the form in the doctor’s folder.”

God help me. God help these people who are working for US.

And now I shall call C. at the managed care company who is “here” for me,  and we shall have a little chat. To be continued.

And so a call to C. at 1:20 pm. The woman who was supposed to contact me and advise me.

I am such a freaking diplomat, friends, you would have been proud! I always extend gratitude, I always extend cordiality and I tell it like it is. C. had little to say because I shot my mouth off for 10 minutes and she doesn’t even know I was implying she is inept. Early on she said she got the paperwork I sent. I have no idea whether she meant the fax or the email. I took over the conversation. I took over the case.

I let it be known that I got all the paperwork together and that it was sent in certified. I let it be known that I was waiting for two days for her to contact me and could wait no longer: That I couldn’t afford to have my mother lose her benefits. I let it be known that the Medicaid organization appeared to be full of half-hearted-name-misspellers that shovel papers from one side of the desk to another and that they were treating my mother’s case as though she had just been approved for service rather than for an annual renewal; I let it be known, further, that Medicaid is a disgrace to the elderly.

I also said that in the future we needed a plan and that we had to communicate to let one another know what the heck was going on. Hmmmm. She said, “I agree.”

Yes, C., you can spout the rhetoric all you want but with no follow-up, I am, as usual, the final outcome.

The buck stops on my desk.

This series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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