Your Elderly Parent Is In The Hospital
...Now What? 

There are no classes in life for beginners;
right away you are always asked to deal
with what is most difficult.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~ 

One of every three patients hospitalized in the USA is over 65 years old. With every passing year the odds are greater that your parent will be one of them.

When they are sick and in pain our elderly parents don't have the strength or the mental reserves to keep up with all that goes on in a hospital. Your parent needs you to be the guardian of his treatment and his recovery, along with his pocket book, while he can't do it himself.

Here Are The Information and The Tools You Need To Help Your Parent Get The Best Care, In The Hospital and Beyond

• If there were ever a place designed to keep you feeling like an outsider, it's a hospital. It's kind of like trying to break into the popular clique in high school. Back then it just felt like life and death. Now it really is life and death.
  
  
• In the hospital you mostly feel like you're just in the way. Doctors and nurses seem to brush you off and you can't get any information.
  
  
• Your parent is still weak and sick, and they're talking about sending her home.
  
  
• You have a hunch that you should be planning for what comes next, but you don't even know what questions to ask.
  
  
• And even though this is Medicare, and things are supposed to be covered, somewhere along the line you figure money is going to rear it's ugly head.

Nowhere is navigating the twists and turns of the eldercare maze more exhausting, frustrating, terrifying or ultimately more rewarding than while you're supporting a helpless senior in the hospital. No one can guarantee the outcome of your vigil, but the information in these pages will give you both a fighting chance.

You want to be a confident, and competent, member of the team taking care of your older loved one. The last thing you need is to feel like you're imposing because you have a question (but most people in hospitals do feel that way). You want to know what to expect, and you want to know how the rules work so you can make them work for you. This manual is your best place to get what you need, quick.

          • You'll learn what to do...
          • You'll know why you should do it...
          • You'll know how to do it...
          • You'll become a full-fledged member of your parent's team, in the hospital and 
             beyond.

Mom's In The Hospital

Preface  

Chapter 1:  Checking Into The Hospital Through The Emergency Room  

Chapter 2:  A Pre-Planned Hospital Stay   

Chapter 3:  What To Bring To The Hospital  

Chapter 4:  What If Your Parent's Regular Doctor Doesn't Come To The Hospital?

Chapter 5:  How Do I Get Them To Talk To Me?

Chapter 6:  Being Your Parent's Hospital Advocate

Chapter 7:  What Will The Hospital Charge?

Chapter 8:  What If The Hospital Wants To Discharge My Parent Too Soon?

Chapter 9:  Working With The Discharge Planner

Chapter 10: Checking Out Of The Hospital

Chapter 11: Can My Parent Go Home Or To Rehab By Ambulance?

Chapter 12: After The Hospital: Recovery in a Skilled Nursing/Rehabilitation Facility

Chapter 13: Make Yourself Part Of The Rehab Care Team

Chapter 14: If Your Parent Refuses Post-Hospital Therapy

Chapter 15: Home Care

Chapter 16: Home Medical Equipment