Show #252 Airing: Sunday, April 18, 2004
Admitting a loved one to a nursing home is always a tough, stressful decision. To make matters worse, you’ll be called into the nursing facility’s administration office and handed a thick stack of documents and contracts to sign.
The paperwork is complicated, intimidating, and sometimes unintelligible. If you had a day to read it, you probably couldn’t get through everything. And they’ll give you maybe 24 minutes, not 24 hours. Sign or they’ll put out your spouse or parent.
They’ll tell you--“don’t worry, it’s all boilerplate.” Don’t believe it. Many of these documents are dangerous. Let me tell you about four of the forms that you need to be especially careful with.
First is the financial disclosure form which is part of the nursing home application. They’ll demand that you disclose every asset owned by the applicant and spouse. Every dollar in the bank, every stock and security in a brokerage account, every IRA or 401(k), every life insurance policy. The nursing home doesn’t legitimately need all that financial data. After all, if they participate in Medicaid, federal law says they can’t base admissions decisions on the financial status of the applicant. At least, they can’t lawfully base admissions decisions on the applicant’s finances.
Second is the document where they tell you to sign to be financially responsible to pay the applicant’s nursing home bills. Certainly the nursing home resident can sign this paper. But what if the resident is incompetent and can’t sign for himself?
If you’re the spouse, you can go ahead and sign, because you’ll be legally responsible anyhow. The problem comes when a child or some other family member is asked to sign. My advice here is simple: don’t. Don’t sign, at least not for yourself. If you do, you’re asking for problems. You’ll be opening yourself up to a lawsuit by the nursing home for your parent’s unpaid bills. If the nursing home insists on a signature, sign as the resident’s agent or power of attorney. But don’t just sign your own name to be a financial guarantor for your parent.
Third is a document stating that none of the resident’s assets will be gifted or transferred to others without the nursing home’s okay. Transfers of assets may be the only way to salvage part of the resident’s life savings from Medicaid. It’s illegal for a nursing home to prohibit transfers, and you should not sign that form.
Finally, and maybe most dangerous, is a Medicaid application. In addition to the nursing home application, many nursing homes today will tell you to sign an application for Medicaid benefits. Don’t! Signing a Medicaid application, and letting the nursing home file it for you, can actually cause you to lose Medicaid coverage. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen.
So what should you do? If you simply refuse to sign these documents, the nursing home may refuse to accept or keep your loved one. Then you’d be in the unpleasant position of either moving your relative or fighting the nursing home in court.
There’s no simple solution. My best advice is to get advice. And do it early, before you’re in a crisis situation. Bring the forms to an elder law attorney to review before you sign. These are binding legal documents. Don’t sign anything without knowing what it says and understanding the ramifications.
