hospice equipment vent

[Anonymous]

I'm beginning to suspect that I'm the victim of some sort of equipment billing/swap shenanigans. Don't get me wrong, hospice has *generally* been great for what I mostly needed it for-- periodic extra pair of eyes on my mom in memory care, incontinence supplies, and bed/wheelchair. Hospice literally saved my mom's life in the facility the state had originally put her into.

Anyway, scenario is this: she entered private memory care on hospice, so hospice provided the hospital bed and a wheelchair ton entry to the facility. My dad also entered memory care, not on hospice, so I set up a modified hospital bed, since he was a tall man. They were technically in separate beds in a two-occupancy room, but beds were pushed together like a funny king hospital bed for most of their stay.

Anyway, my dad suddenly passed a few weeks ago, and so I needed to empty his "half" of the room in order to close out his contract and stop paying for the room. Since the bed I brought was a better bed, I decided to have hospice take their bed back-- mom was set up on the larger bed, the hospice bed was stripped and placed in the other part of the room, and hospice called the equipment company to pick up.

First attempt: they never showed, said they couldn't find the room. (It's a locked ward with a separate elevator, so they likely just didn't feel like asking how to get there and waiting for an escort)

Second attempt, several days later: someone showed up, disassembled the bed, left the pieces strewn around the room blocking my moms bed and wardrobe. A few hours of calling and the answer from the equipment company was "it's not our bed". I had to go down and move the bed pieces so they weren't blocking anything in the room. Talking with the hospice, they said they talked to the equipment company and they assured me they would pick up the bed, and call me when they got there. Now under a time crunch, as the bed had to go away in the next day or I would have to start paying the daily rate for the other half of the room.

Third attempt: They (of course) did not call. I remained dropped in on the amazon echo in the room all day to catch them and call the floor nurse while they were in the room. The driver said he was looking for a serial number and they didn't match-- what he actually described was an asset tag. He could not tell me what make or model of bed he was looking for. After a lot of heated discussion, I got the company name and his supervisors number. Supervisor claims that they don't stock that model of bed, but also admits they stock nearly identical beds from that manufacturer.

Currently at an impasse. I went down and disassembled removed the bed myself, but I can't throw it out because it's not my bed, and until someone gives me paperwork releasing me I'm liable for returning a bed to hospice. I estimate that there is only a 1-2% chance that the hospice bed was misdelivered to another room on admittance- it's a very small facility, and my parents were one of the first residents. I sincerely doubt that two hospital beds were delivered on the same day. What I suspect is that the equipment provider is trying to claim a loss because (a year and a half later) they no longer provide that exact model of bed and cannot reuse it. I suspect the first or second guy removed the asset tag and just left because they don't want to deal with an old model bed. Of course, an asset tag proves nothing- I could put it on a nightstand and say that was the equipment provided. The equipment provider *should* be able to provide the make/model/serial number of the actual bed provided, and presumably would need to in order to claim a loss. Right?

I'm just incandescently angry at the moment. I'm grateful this isn't happening after my mom has passed as well, but JFC. I just lost my dad, and I have a useless hospital bed that I can't throw out IN MY CAR. And the only reason I have as much information as I do is because I literally had to harangue it out of the driver who I caught on the videophone.

[Anonymous]

Can you escalate with hospice and not the equipment company. Go up the ladder with hospice since they're the ones who contracted with the equipment people. I apologize if I'm not understanding all of the players here.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if there is a way to get Medicare involved, if they are the ones paying for hospice. Continuing to bill for equipment that is no longer being used sounds like it could get the vendor in trouble.

[Anonymous]

Does hospice have a physical address? Give them a heads up that you’re going to drop it off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if there is a way to get Medicare involved, if they are the ones paying for hospice. Continuing to bill for equipment that is no longer being used sounds like it could get the vendor in trouble.

yeah, it feels like medicare fraud on the part of the equipment vendor at the heart of it. i think they're banking on me being too distraught/time crunched to get to the bottom of this, when instead they have just gotten a direct line to my implacable wrath that has had no good outlet for weeks.

also, i have a lawyer for a father in law, seems a shame to waste a good angry lawyer letter....

[Anonymous]

I’m having a difficult time following. But I would escalate with the hospice - they contracted with this company and coordinated the rental, yes?

[Anonymous]

Do you have to pay for the bed or not? I suspect it’s covered under Medicaid or whatever.
Then I would stop worrying about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have to pay for the bed or not? I suspect it’s covered under Medicaid or whatever.
Then I would stop worrying about it.

they can't decide. and until they send me something in writing that we aren't responsible for paying for the bed I can't get rid of this giant pile of metal. so the longer this drags on the angrier i get. i just had to wrestle it out of my car by myself and collected more bruises in the process, and now it's taking up my parking space. 🤬🤬🤬