Actually, periodically re-examine your will AND your beneficiary designations so your assets will go where you intend/desire and not to someone you LONG AGO cared about but may not want to receive your assets. We will be meeting with our estate attorney to review our plans and figure out how we may wish to make changes.
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Good advice. My brother never removed his fiancée from his life insurance policy when they broke up. Years later, he died unexpectedly in his mid-40’s. His ex got $100,000 & his D, who was in her junior year of college, got nothing. At the top of the policy documents we found in his apartment, my brother had written “change beneficiary” to his D … but he never did it.
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My mother is dying, she went to a hospice house today.
I don’t really understand but it seems that if she doesn’t die in 4 or 5 days, we will have to move her somewhere else to die.
To say that mom has been difficult is a bit of an understatement. She’s been gaslighting, giving guilt trips and generally being mean and miserable to both my sibling and I.
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I’m so sorry! I hope things will be as peaceful and pain free for your mom and your family.
Hospice inpatient units have different requirements that patients need to meet. However, like “regular” hospice, if your mom is still meeting the criteria she should be able to stay for longer. My mom was inpatient hospice for nearly 2 weeks before she died. If she had stabilized, she would have gone back to her memory care unit but typically hospice staff are good prognosticators.
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Thanks that is very helpful @momofboiler1
Mom is 300 miles away from me, we had been visiting family for the past 10 days when I couldn’t get ahold of her, had her IL do a wellness check. She was unresponsive (moaning) so they took her to the ED.
She has a lot of things wrong, such as a pulmonary embolism and pneumonia, the hospital gave her antibiotics, even though she is DNRCC, she seems much better and so I am afraid that she will have to be moved from hospice.
She is demanding to only go back to her IL room, who is saying that she will require 24 hour nursing. Which she really can’t afford but she doesn’t care.
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@deb922 - I’m so sorry. It’s never easy. Thinking of you and your family and sending peace to all.
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Sending you many hugs and strength as you deal with your mom’s health situation. 
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@deb922 my thoughts are with you. I hope your mother is comfortable and receiving great hospice care. In our experience, hospice was “flexible” with the criteria. And they were the most wonderful and supportive people…for the patient and the family.
I know your mom lives a distance away. Will you be going back there?
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@deb922 my biggest cyberhugs. I’m so sorry.
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Wednesday
Came home to do laundry, my husband needed to get out of there. He was a nervous wreck by the end.
So I’ll unpack, do tons of laundry and repack.
There’s a guest suite at the IL that I’ll be staying at even though mom is not there. My sibling has another relative staying with her so I couldn’t stay there.
We’ve been staying in a different hotel every night for the past 4 days. We thought we could go home but weren’t able to so we booked another hotel. The guest suite is more like an apartment so I’m hoping I’ll be more comfortable there.
I’m beyond exhausted
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@deb922, more hugs from me.
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(((Hugs))) from me. I hope that you get some rest tonight and that your mom can stay in the hospice house.
Not sure whether you would prefer this or not, but can you stay in your mom’s IL unit?
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Sometimes if you say you’ll contest discharge they decide the patient can stay longer without having to be discharged.
I did say I’d contest when they wanted me to sign that they could stop giving mom in-home PT and OT because I said we needed her to get a little more help for a little longer so they agreed and made it several more sessions.
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Mom was pretty incontinent, the mattress seemed to me to be ruined.
That was my siblings advice also. I told her the mattress was ruined and the bedding needed to be replaced so I would stay in a hotel.
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I could use some guidance about mom’s finances
I am the financial POA. My mom never set up her former town bank for me to write checks on, my sibling has another local account that she’s a joint owner. Mom never set up to deposit directly into that account. She has always wanted control of her finances and recently became paranoid that someone was stealing from her. That account has a minimal amount of money in it.
Do you think I will be able to withdraw money from her investments to pay for her funeral? I’d like to call her FA and have a transfer set up to my checking account. So we can pay for the funeral and other expenses that we will have
Also will the bank close mom’s checking accounts once she passes away?
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I am so sorry, (hugs) to you.
It varies on so many levels, the most direct answer will come from the FA and your mom’s bank. In our case, the bank did not close any accounts until a death certificate was produced.
My dad was in hospice for the last 6 weeks he lived. It varies widely, but it seems really unlikely you only have 4-5 days. I would ask them to clarify if you can.
I’m so sorry. Remember to eat.
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It may be different state to state but if you have access to a bank account now, you may want to transfer money while your mom is still alive.
My dad died unexpectedly and the accounts were frozen even though I was on the account. We had to set up an estate account which took some time, a certified death certificate, and a letter of testament from the attorney. Funds then were transferred to the estate account. The estate account reimbursed us for the upfront costs but we were out of pocket a good amount before the reimbursement happened
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Ask if you can prepay her funeral expenses using an account you do have access to. That’s what we did. It saved us having to figure this out when our parents passed. We also prepaid for the grave stone. Again…decision and payment made.
I know that’s a hard decision to make.
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Depends on how the accounts are set up. In our cases, one of us jointly held the account…so really it was our account too. It was not frozen at all when the parents died. Check with the financial institution.
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I think a call to the FA is a great idea. He/she can give you ideas for how to handle all this. As others have said, so much depends on how the various accounts are structured. Getting some of this changed while your mom is still alive would be helpful.
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